This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1903 Excerpt: ... Plates 1-8 c. It was greatly to our advantage to have as a guide the surveys published by the Admiralty.1 We could obtain at a glance an accurate idea of the points of interest needing further examination and thus worked with great rapidity, losing no time in obtaining information by a tedious examination on shore of points of unknown value. This was specially important in a group of such simplicity and uniformity of structure as the Maldives. It seems to me as if the conditions of portions of the Maldive plateau were very similar to those existing upon the Yucatan Plateau inside the one-hundred-fathom line, where from a depth of about forty fathoms rise independent reefs such as the Triangles, Alacran Reef, the English, Opisbo, and Areas Banks. There is however a great difference in the number of atolls found in the two regions. On the Maldivian plateau in a distance of over four hundred and fifty miles there must be hundreds of atolls; while on the Yucatan plateau, three or four only of the patches can be designated as atolls in about the same length. The number of atolls and islands existing on the Maldives is estimated to be as great as ten thousand. This is probably an exaggeration. I have counted roughly the number of atolls and rings and islands of Ari and other groups. There are three hundred and ninety-one in the Ari 1 The Maldives were surveyed during 1834-1836 by Commander Moresby and Lieutenants Powell and Young. These surveys were published by the Admiralty as sheets 66 a, 66 6, and 66 c (PIs. 1-6). The survey of Minikoi in 1891 by Commander Hoskyn is published as Admiralty Chart 2738; it also shows the relations of Minikoi to the Indian peninsula as well as to the Maldives and Laccadives. The Laccadives and the opposite coast of the Indian pen...