LAGOON. Shallow salt-water lagoons, known as backwaters, run around the shores of the Bay of Bengal and of the Arabian Sea, some of them from twenty to fifty miles long ; they afford great facilities for a safe inland traffic along the coast line, the violence of the monsoons, and the few sheltered harbours on the eastern coast of the Peninsula, rendering navigation perilous at all times and often impossible. Ou the E. coast of the Peninsula the Ennore or Pulicat and Kolar lakes are the largest, and a large lagoon runs along the coast-line of the Travancore state. The lagoons of the coast of India are quite dissimilar from those of the coral islands. In the latter, the surf beating loud and heavy along the margin of the reef, presents a strange contrast to the pro spect beyond,—the white coral beach, the massy foliage, and the embosomed lake, with its tiny islets. The colour of the coral lagoon water is often as blue as the ocean ; although about fifteen or twenty fathoms deep, yet shades of green and yellow are intermingled where patches of sand or coral knolls are near the surface, and the green is a delicate apple shade, quite unlike the usual muddy tint of shallow waters. ' These garlands of verdure seem to stand on the brims of cups, Seven miles east of Clermont Tonnere, the lead ran out to eleven hundred and forty-five fathoms (six thousand eight hundred and seventy feet) without reaching bottom. Within three-quarters of a mile of the southern point of this island, the lead had another throw, and, after running out for a while, brought up for an instant at three hundred and fifty fathoms, and then dropped off again, and descended to six hundred fathoms without reaching bottom. The atoll lagoons are generally shallow,
though in the larger islands soundiug gave twenty to thirty-five, and even fifty and sixty fathoms.' The lake of Kolar, in the Kistna and Godavery districts of Madras, is a marine lagoon. In the rains it is a fine lake ; in the dry season a large part of the area is half mud. In the intervals of the dry and wet seasons it is a swamp. Naturally it abounds in fish and in a very dry year the remains of old villages are to he seen, with large quantities of charcoal and charred beams. A succession of lagoons or backwaters, connected by navigable canals, extends along the Malabar coast. The extreme length is nearly 200 miles from Changhat to Trivandrum ; but between the latter place and Quilon there rises a high promontory of land about 6 miles in breadth, which is being cut through to make the line of water communication complete. The total area of these lakes is 227i square miles in Travan core, Cochin, and British territory. A strip of land from seven to about half a mile wide separates these backwaters from tho sea ; but at Chetwai, Kodangalur, Cochin, Kagankulam, Iveka, and Paravur are outlets by which the rivers enter the sea. Tho whole commerce of the country is carried on these waters. Most of the boats are formed of a single teak, angely, or cotton tree, the trunk of which is hollowed out The ordinary size is about 20 feet by 2i- feet. Tho boats for carrying rico to a distance are larger, and have a deck or roof.—Gosse's Nat. Hist. p. 94; Cheerer's Sandwich Islands. See Coral; Polype.