CHRISTMAS ISLAND, a British possession annexed ire Jan. 1889, and made part of the Straits Settlements in May 1900, situated in the eastern part of the Indian ocean (in io° 25' S., 42' E.), about 19om. S. of Java. It is quadrilateral; its greatest length is its extreme breadth 9 miles. The circum stances of its discovery are unknown, but it appears on a Dutch chart of 1666 under the name of Moni. Dampier visited it in 1688 and found it uninhabited. It was visited by H.M.S. "Flying Fish" in 1886, which discovered the anchorage now known as Flying Fish Cove. In 1891 an area of 6,000ac. was leased to George Clunies Ross, the owner of the Cocos-Keeling island and Sir John Murray, who in 1897 transferred their rights to a corn pany. A thorough scientific investigation of the island was made in that year by C. W. Andrews of the British Museum at the cost of Sir John Murray. A district officer belonging to the Malayan civil service is in administrative charge of the island. (Pop., 1926, 1,043, almost all of whom are employees of the company which, in that year, exported 128,981 tons of phosphate of lime.) The island is the flat summit of a submarine mountain of which some 14,000f t. are submerged and rather more than I ,000ft. are above sea-level. The slopes are steep, and within tom. of the shore the sea reaches a depth of 2,400 fathoms. It consists of a central plateau descending to the water in three terraces. It is encircled by a reef which is always submerged, except at Flying Fish Cove, the only landing-place. On its northern aspect the central plateau has a raised rim having all the appearances of having once been the margin of an atoll. The surface of the pla teau is studded with flat-topped hills and low ridges and reefs of limestone. On the rounded hills occurs the deposit of phosphate of lime which gives the island its commercial value. This has doubtless been produced by the long-continued action of a thick bed of sea-fowl dung, which converted the carbonate of the under lying limestone into phosphate. There occurs on this island a series of tertiary deposits which appear to be unique. The whole series was evidently deposited in shallow water on the summit of a submarine volcano standing in its present isolation, round which the ocean bed has probably altered but a few hundred feet since the Eocene age. Thus, though the rocks of the southern coast of Java in their general character and succession resemble those of Christmas island, there lies between them an abysmal trough 18,000f t. in depth, which renders it scarcely possible that they were deposited in a continuous area, for such an enormous depres sion could hardly have occurred since Miocene times without involving Christmas island.
The flora is mainly angiospermous, but ferns and a few mosses, lichens and fungi, 17 of which are endemic, also occur, while a considerable number—not specifically distinct—form local varie ties, nearly all of which present Indo-Malayan affinities. The fauna consists of 319 animals—S4 only being vertebrates-145 of which are endemic. It is noteworthy that a large number show affinity with the species in the Austro-Malayan, rather than in the Indo-Malayan, their nearer, region. The climate is healthy, the temperature varying from 7 5 ° to 84° F. The prevailing wind is the south-east trade, which blows during the greater part of the year. There is an ample but not excessive rainfall.
See C. W. Andrews, A Monograph of Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) (1900) .