198 Transactions. — Geology. 



by a race of people previous to the special local migi-ation 

 of the present inhabitants. I know of no race of islanders 

 in the Pacific now acquainted with sculpture ; neither do 

 they possess even the tools with which they could do the 

 work. 



There is an exception, perhaps, to these two statements — 

 viz., the arragonite money of Uap (or Yap), in the Carolines, 

 and the Spaniards may have taught some of the Western 

 Pacific islanders, since the sixteenth century, to roughly carve 

 in coral. But the extraordinary money mentioned is composed 

 of large discs of arragonite, often of great size; 6 ft. in dia- 

 meter, 12 in. thick, and about 3 tons in weight are not un- 

 common dimensions. It is not used as a medium of exchange, 

 but for purposes of ostentation. The arragonite is brought 

 from a quarry in the Harbour of Malakal, at Korror Island, in 

 the Palao or Pelew Group. 



At the Duke of York and New Britain Islands it was the 

 custom for a chief to place all his treasures before a visitor, 

 and after inspection to have them put away. Thus several 

 large coils of cowry money, about the size of lifebuoys, were 

 placed before the Eev. Messi's. Brown and Fletcher at 

 Blanche Bay when opening the first mission to those islands 

 in 1875. These islands are about thirteen hundred miles 

 from Uap, not an excessive distance for a canoe voyage iu 

 the Pacific. It would be well if some officer of our warships 

 visiting the Carolines would inform us how this arragonite 

 money is cut and removed from the quarry. 



The trinolith and Langiis at Tongatabu (of which I present 

 photographs) were cut from the coral reef, I believe, as the 

 stones are not far from shore. (I am waiting Mr. A. W. Mac- 

 kay's paper for a full and minute description of these ruins.) 

 Arragonite is a mineral essentially consisting of carbonate of 

 lime, and much like calcareous spar. The two minerals only 

 differ in their form of crystallization. The rhombic prisms of 

 arragonite are easily divided by the hammer, so that there 

 should be little difliculty in quarrying them. Arragonite is a 

 mineral found usually in volcanic districts, and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of hot springs. Its crystals are sometimes prisms 

 shortened into tables, which this money resembles. It ap- 

 pears to be the product of a crystallization taking place at 

 a higher temperature than that in which calcareous spar is 

 produced, showing great submarine volcanic action in days 

 gone by at Uap. I should consider that the coral-polyp first 

 deposited the hme, great subsidence and followed by volcanic 

 action subsequently breaking up and converting the reef into 

 columns of basalt, calcareous spar, and arragonite. 



Mr. F, J. Moss, in his book, " Through Atolls and Islands 

 in the Great South Sea," writes of Ponape (or Ascension 



