Excerpt from The Coral Reefs of the MaldivesIT had always been my intention, on the completion of my explorations of the atoll and coral regions Of the Pacific, to make an expedition to the Maldives, the only great group of atolls I had not visited, and which promised interesting results, the coral reefs of the Maldives differing radi cally, according to the charts, from every region I had examined.l We spent part of December, 1901, and January, 1902, in exploring the Maldives.The steamer Amra, chartered from the British India Steam Naviga tion Company, proved a most serviceable vessel for examining the coral reefs of the Maldives.2 She was commanded by Captain William Pigott, R. N. R., who proved himself a most careful navigator among the maze of atolls through which we steamed for over sixteen hundred miles. Both he and the Officers of the Amra showed the greatest interest in the objects of the Expedition. Captain Pigott took charge of the sounding machine, and himself superintended all the soundings we took (more than eighty in number), he became exceedingly skilful at this work. Several of the deeper soundings were taken successfully under most trying circum stances. The Amra was equipped with a deep-sea Lucas sounding machine built for me by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company of London. The machine difiers radically from the American type of sounding machine developed by Captain Sigsbee with which I was familiar, and which I had in commission on all my former expeditions.This is the last of the series of monographs I shall publish on Coral Reefs, and I hope, as soon as practicable, to give a re'sume' and connected account of the results obtained during my expeditions to all the important coral regions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.