FUA MULAKU. — ADDU. 145 



Fua Mulaku. 



Plates 1, 6, 8 c, fig. 23. 



We were unable to visit the island of Fua Mulaku ; it rises in the 

 Equatorial Channel from a depth of about thirteen hundred fathoms, at a 

 distance of less than two miles. It is twenty miles distant from Addu, and 

 (rends in a northeasterly direction. The island is two miles long, about 

 three quarters of a mile wide, steep to, except at the southeast face, where 

 a long shoal with soundings varying from two to seven fathoms extends for 

 about one and a half miles southward. Mr. Gardiner 1 states that, according 

 to native accounts, Fua Mulaku has a pool of fresh water in the centre. 



Addu. 



Plates 1, 6; 8 c, figs. 21, 23; 76, 77, fig. 2. 



While some of the larger groups of the Maldives, like Kolumadulu, 

 Haddummati, Suvadiva, and Felidu, bear a close resemblance to atolls in the 

 Paumotus, the Marshall, Ellice, and Gilbert Islands, yet the groups which 

 most resemble the Pacific atolls are smaller atolls like Addu, Wataru Reef, 

 Rasdu, Gaha Faro, Goifurfehendu, Fadiffolu, Makunudu, and Ihavandiffulu. 



Addu (PI. 6), perhaps, is more like some of the Pacific atolls than any 

 other Maldivian group. It is isolated from the rest of the groups, fifty 

 miles from the nearest atoll to the north, and its position reminds us of 

 that of Funafuti, one of the atolls of the Ellice group, forty miles distant 

 from Nukufetau, the next island to the north, separated by a channel more 

 than twenty-four hundred fathoms deep. Between Addu and Suvadiva we 

 have a depth of over twelve hundred fathoms. 



Addu on the south is as far isolated from the Maldives as is Minikoi on 

 the north, both resembling low Pacific atolls, and quite different in structure 

 from the typical Maldivian atoll ; both are bounded by reef flats, not by faros ; 

 but the climatic conditions under which they are placed are quite different. 

 Minikoi is in the region of the northeast and southwest monsoons, while 

 Addu is in the equatorial region of variable southerly and westerly winds, 



1 hoc. cit., p. 419. 

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