288 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



is situated in almost exactly 150° W. longitude and io° S. 

 latitude, and is distant, according to Mr. Arundel, about 

 400 miles from Tahiti, the nearest island of considerable 

 size — say a third larger than the Isle of Wight ; and 420 

 from Starbuck. Although in most parts well clothed with 

 vegetation, this vegetation consists of very few, perhaps 

 not more than twenty, species of vascular plants. Several 

 others now exist, either as the remains of cultivation or 

 accidental introduction ; and the abundance of the cocoanut 

 palm is due to planting, which has now been in operation 

 for some years. Whether the cocoanut existed in the 

 island on the first advent of man there is no evidence to 

 show ; but there are trees of other kinds of large size, as 

 depicted and described in the report referred to. They are: 

 Calophyllum Inophylliim (Guttiferse), Morinda citrifolia 

 (Rubiaceae), Cordia subcordata (Boragineae), Pisonia grandis 

 (Nyetaginaceae), and a screw pine, probably the widely spread 

 Pandanus odoratissi?nus. One of the illustrations is a most 

 effective representation of a group of screw pines. The 

 Cordia is perhaps the commonest tree, and is most con- 

 spicuous, having a spreading crown with branches down to 

 the ground. Pisojiia grandis is described as forty or fifty 

 feet high, with a trunk four feet in diameter ; dimensions 

 one would hardly have expected. I have drawn some- 

 what freely from this report, because it is by far the most 

 instructive known to me. 



A more recent contribution to island literature by Mr. 

 C. M. Woodford (4) is equally deserving of attention, 

 though wanting illustrations. It deals with the Gilbert 

 Archipelago, one of the most remarkable of the numerous 

 groups in the Eastern Pacific. There are sixteen islands, 

 not counting the islets of the atolls, forming a chain, trend- 

 ing from north-west to south-east and extending from about 

 3° north to 3 south latitude in 173 to 1 77° east longitude. 

 Eleven out of the sixteen are of atoll formation, and the 

 largest of them is little more than twenty miles long and 

 twenty feet high in the highest part. They are mostly 

 inhabited, and the population half a century ago was 

 estimated at 50,000, though it has since dwindled down to 



