Many islands[5] are fringed by reefs quite similar to those of Mauritius; but on coasts where the sea deepens very suddenly the reefs are much narrower, and their limited extension seems evidently to depend on the high inclination of the submarine slope; a relation, which, as we have seen, does not exist in reefs of the barrier class. The fringing-reefs on steep coasts are frequently not more than from fifty to one hundred yards in width; they have a nearly smooth, hard surface, scarcely uncovered at low water, and without any interior shoal channel, like that within those fringing-reefs, which lie at a greater distance from the land. The fragments torn up during gales from the outer margin are thrown over the reef on the shores of the island. I may give as instances, Wateeo, where the reef is described by Cook as being a hundred yards wide; and Mauti and Elizabeth Islands,[6] where it is only fifty yards in width: the sea round these islands is very deep. [5] I may give Cuba, as another instance; Mr. Taylor (Loudon’s Mag. of Nat. Hist. volume ix., page 449) has described a reef several miles in length between Gibara and Vjaro, which extends parallel to the shore at the distance of between half and the third part of a mile, and encloses a space of shallow water, with a sandy bottom and tufts of coral. Outside the edge of the reef, which is formed of great branching corals, the depth is six and seven fathoms. This coast has been upheaved at no very distant geological period.” [6] Mauti is described by Lord Byron in the voyage of H.M.S. _Blonde_, and Elizabeth Island by Captain Beechey.