A FAR ADVENTURE 311 



tion, an ornithologist of wide repute, consulted the 

 older scientist on every point and with the great- 

 est respect, and Shan found nothing but friendli- 

 ness and cordiality among the other members of 

 the expedition. The photographer, an aggressive 

 young Scotchman, was much more interested in 

 chemistry and principles of photography than in 

 the habits of birds, though he was an excellent 

 photographer. On the passage he willingly taught 

 Shan the fundamentals of chemistry so far as they 

 related to photography. He liked to show off his 

 knowledge and Shan wanted to learn, so they be- 

 came fast friends. 



The Hawaiian Island Bird Reservation, one of 

 lUncle Sam's little-known possessions, consists of 

 a dozen or more islands, reefs and shoals, stretch- 

 ing westward from Hawaii for the distance of a 

 thousand miles toward Japan. A few of the is- 

 lands possess a scanty soil, but most of them are 

 mere masses of volcanic rock. Laysan, itself, is 

 a raised coral atoll, about two miles long and a 

 little less broad, in shape like a shallow oval dish. 

 It is at no point higher than thirty feet above the 

 sea. The central lagoon, characteristic of coral 

 atolls, and which is about a hundred acres in ex- 

 tent, is now unconnected with the ocean. The 



