1899] FUNAFUTI: THE STUDY OF A CORAL ATOLL 33 



fauna of marine troglodytes, which might, if we wished to add to the 

 burden of nomenclature, be designated the " Cryptone." 



After this brief description of the superficial features of the atoll, 

 we may next endeavour to trace the history of that part of it which 

 rises above the sea and properly constitutes the land. The sheet of 

 hard coral-rock, which we mentioned as cropping out beneath the 

 storm-beach, can be traced into the interior of the island, where it forms 

 the floor of the central depression ; and again to the lagoon side, where 

 it emerges to form the floor of the lagoon, and in many places the 

 beach, or as well even a low line of cliffs. In the little islet of Pava, 

 north of Funafuti, it is seen to extend continuously from one side of 

 the land to the other — from the ocean to the lagoon. 



We may therefore fairly conclude that this sheet of rock forms the 

 solid base on which the land above it rests. It is composed mainly of 

 slabs of coral, lying not quite horizontally, but overlapping like the tiles 

 of a roof, with a slight inclination towards the ocean side of the reef. 



These fragments have evidently been derived from the outer zone of 

 growing coral. Before the land, as it now exists, was formed, the waves 

 were incessantly engaged in tearing off fragments from the coral zone, and 

 driving; them across the reef into the lagoon, till a thick sheet of debris was 

 the result. This became consolidated as it formed, partly by the growth 

 of incrusting calcareous algae, and now forms the solid floor of the island. 



Masses of broken corals, torn up and driven inland by the breakers, 

 continued to accumulate after the formation of the floor ; and thus that 

 great pile of coral clinkers, which forms the storm-beach, has been and 

 is still being built up. 



On the other side, the wavelets of the lagoon have washed up 

 smaller fragments of coral and foraminiferal shells, and thus the strip 

 of land which borders the lagoon, and on which the village of Funafuti 

 stands, has been produced. 



The middle of the island — the great central depression including the 

 taro ground and the mangrove swamp — is the remains of the original 

 solid platform left exposed between the storm-beach on the one hand and 

 the lagoon land on the other. Thus all that portion of Funafuti which 

 stands above high tide has been cast up from the ocean and the lagoon, 

 and this beautiful island, like another Aphrodite, has been born with the 

 foam from the waves of the sea. 



If this be the true history of the island, how then did it acquire its 

 inhabitants ? (Fig. 12). Did they climb upwards, like the corals, as the 

 island was submerged, or did they arrive as flotsom and jetsom of the sea. 

 As regards the natives there can be but one answer — they came by 

 boat. In former clays the Polynesians possessed excellent sea-going 

 craft, in which they were accustomed to make long voyages, steering 

 by the stars and other signs in the sky. They well knew how to 

 preserve food by drying, and thus had no difficulty in provisioning for 

 a cruise. The routes they followed in passing from island to island are 



3 NAT. SC. VOL. XIV. NO. 83. 



