GAHA FAKO. 53 



Gaha Faro. 



Plates 1, 3 ; 8 a, figs. 6, 8 ; 8 b, fir/. 11. 



Gaha Faro is eight miles in length by four in width, four to five times 

 larger than many of the rings and faros of the Maldives. The greatest 

 depth of its lagoon is twenty-two fathoms. Gafaru Island is the only land 

 on the rim of this atoll, with the exception of small sand banks, one on the 

 southern face to the west of Gafaru and the others on the eastern spit of 

 the northern and the southern spit of the western entrances to Gaha Faro. 

 Gafaru Island is edged by shingle beaches with a few patches of coral bould- 

 ers on the outer edge of its southern reef flat. The reef flat enclosing the 

 lagoon of Gaha Faro is very narrow and shallow, the sea breaking over its 

 surface and along the continuous outer line of the flat broken only by a 

 narrow pass to the north and a similar one opening to the west. The con- 

 tinuous reef flat with its two passes gives Gaha Faro all the features of an 

 atoll which it is difficult to distinguish from a gigantic faro. Had we seen 

 it in the Pacific it would pass as an atoll in no way differing from the 

 many of its kind in the Ellice, Gilbert, or Marshall Islands. Yet in the 

 Maldives, Gaha Faro and similar atolls are regarded as faros. Gaha Faro is 

 separated from its adjoining cluster of faros on the northern point of North 

 Male by a channel of not more than a mile and half in width, but with a 

 depth of one hundred fathoms. 1 While the faros of most groups are 

 separated by narrower channels with a greatly varying depth, often not 

 more than seven to eight fathoms, generally about twenty fathoms in the 

 central part of the lagoon. 



The freest possible circulation exists between the lagoon and the sea 

 over the shallow reef flats of the atoll. Coral patches are scattered in 

 abundance over the rim flats. At Gaha Faro as at many of the openings 

 of faros and off the mouth of the passes leading into the larger enclosed 

 basins, the water is often seen to be turbid, evidently carrying in suspension 

 a considerable amount of silt stirred up by the action of the sea on the 

 exposed face of the inner part of the lagoons, or of the islands and banks 

 within an atoll, or from its shallow bottom. 



1 See the depths of the channels separating North, Middle, and South Malosmadulu which range 

 from one hundred to one hundred and fifty fathoms (Pis. 3 ; 8 b. figs. 9, 10). 



