Phillips. — On the Volcanoes of the Pacific. 529 



tiful home-spots in the world. It was through one of these 

 pleasant grassy homesteads in 1868 that the imprisoned lava 

 burst forth "in four huge fountains, 500ft. to 1,000ft. in 

 height, forming a river 200 ft. to 800 ft. broad." Any seg- 

 ment of the circle formed by this huge crater would, I think, 

 more than include any segment seen by Sir James Hector in 

 his late trip to the islands south of this colony. 



I might be allowed to digress here for a moment to call 

 the attention of our engineers to the excellent work of the 

 coral polyp in constructing harbours and breakwaters. There 

 is a reef stretching away from New Caledonia for some 

 hundreds of miles in length; and the x-eef fringing the Aus- 

 tralian Continent to the eastward is some two thousand miles 

 in length. Would it not be possible for us to imitate the 

 work of nature's little polyp engineers, and, with a solution 

 of lime, build away slowly and steadily, bit by bit (not mono- 

 lith by monolith, as is being done in Napier), and so gradually 

 expose a rugged broken wall to the sea, exactly similar to any 

 of the fringing reefs of the Pacific islands? I must say that 

 to my mind a smooth faced and topped monolithic breakwater 

 is absolutely contrary to nature's breakwaters I have seen on 

 every side in the Pacific. The rugged coral breaks up the 

 water, as the huge rollers dash themselves harmlessly on 

 the sea reefs ; and on the shore reefs, the branching tree- 

 coral, there built up from slender stems, even the shore surf 

 fails to dislodge, so long as the live polyp inhabits its slender 

 and often most delicate branches. The Napier Breakwater, 

 as at present constructed, to my mind, is therefore quite op- 

 posed to nature's teaching. If the engineer-in-charge would 

 take a trip to the Pacific islands he would see breakwaters 

 of stupendous dimensions round almost every island, con- 

 structed in the very teeth of the waves, and so simply that 

 his huge monoliths would appear barbarous and quite out of 

 place. Nor do I know of any coral breakwaters constructed 

 at right angles to the coast-line, as in Napier. Nature always 

 builds her breakwaters a mile more or less from the shore, 

 and parallel with it, leaving beautifully still water between 

 thereef and the shore. 



The Elhce, Gilberts, and Marshall Islands are all low 

 coral-islands, earthquakes being occasionally experienced in 

 the Gilberts from a south-west direction. Pleasant Island, in 

 the Gilberts, is about 100 ft. high, having apparently been 

 raised by volcanic action (latitude 0° 32' S., longitude 166° 55' 

 E.). Along this first line, from Auckland to the equator, or 

 perhaps I had better say as a general rule in the Pacific, the 

 south-east trade winds blow steadily from May to November. 

 During the remainder of the year the trade winds are frequently 

 interrupted by northerly and westerly winds. A hurricane 

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