PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 245 



tion obtained by the interpreter on board the Dart, c "J Pi 

 amount altogether to about a hundred souls. v—-y-"- 



As my stay at the island was limited to four days, i^i 

 my time was much occupied at the observatory, and 

 I am indebted to the journals of the officers for 

 many interesting particulars relating to other parts 

 of it, and to its natural productions. 



By our trigonometrical survey, Bow Island is 

 thirty miles long by an average of five miles broad. 

 It is similar to the other coral islands already de- 

 scribed, confining within a narrow band of coral a 

 spacious lagoon, and having its windward side higher 

 and more wooded than the other; which indeed, 

 with the exception of a few clusters of trees and 

 heaps of sand, is little better than a reef. The sea 

 in several places washes into the lagoon, but there 

 is no passage even for a boat, except that by which 

 the ship entered, which is sometimes dangerous to 

 boats, in consequence of the overfalls from the 

 lagoon, especially a little after the time of high 

 water. It is to be hoped that the rapid current 

 which sets through the channel will prevent the 

 growth of the coral, and leave the lagoon always 

 accessible to shipping. It lies at the north side of 

 the island, and may be known by two straggling 

 cocoa-nut trees near it, on the western side, and a 

 clump of trees on the other. 



The bottom of the lagoon is in parts covered with 

 a fine white sand, and it is thickly strewed with 

 coral knolls ; the upper parts of which overhang the 

 lower, though they do not at once rise in this form 

 from the bottom, but from small hillocks. We 

 found comparatively few beneath the surface, though 

 there are some ; at the edge of such as are exposed, 



