ROSE ATOLL, AMERICAN SAMOA. 



By ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGH MAYOR. 

 (Read April 23, 1921.) 



His Excellency the late Commander Warren Jay Terhune, 

 U. S. N., then Governor of Samoa, was so kind as to invite me to 

 accompany him on the U. S. S. Fortune to visit the little known 

 Rose Atoll in S. Lat. 14° 32', W. Long. 168° 12', and we spent 

 twenty-four hours upon this island from June 5 to 6, 1920. There 

 has been no scientific account of the island since 1839. 



The island is an atoll, the lagoon being encircled by a narrow 

 ring of limestone composed chiefly of lithothamnium, which is every- 

 where nearly awash at low tide, excepting on the northeast side, 

 where there is a narrow entrance about six to nine feet in depth, 

 out of which a current constantly flows. The ring of limestone 

 which surrounds the lagoon is quite uniformly about 500 yards in 

 width, while the central lagoon is about two miles wide and appears 

 to have a maximum depth of not more than eight fathoms. There 

 are only two small islets upon the atoll rim, Sand Islet and Rose 

 Islet. The only map of the atoll is U. S. Hydrographic Chart of the 

 Samoan Islands No. 90, based on the survey of the U. S. Exploring 

 Expedition in 1839. This shows Rose Islet as occupying the entire 

 width of the atoll rim, whereas at present it is confined to the inner 

 half of the width of the reef rim. Moreover, this chart shows trees 

 covering the entire area of the islet, whereas at present only the 

 southern half of the islet bears trees. The chart states that Rose 

 Islet is 33 feet high, but at present the land of the islet is 11 feet 

 above high tide, and the tallest trees, as measured by means of a 

 sextant, are about 80 feet high, and thus the total height of the land- 

 fall as seen from the ocean is about 90 feet. 



Rose Islet is at present about 240 yards S.S.W.-N.N.E., and 

 about 200 yards wide. The southern and southeastern half of the 

 islet is densely covered with a forest composed exclusively of 



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