84 "ALBATROSS" TROPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



On the southwestern point of Fakarava we passed a tine old ledge reef 

 platform covered with Pocillipores, considerably higher than the inner flat, 

 and higher again on the lagoon side, with raised sand bars full of small 

 gulleys running at right angles to the sea line. About two miles north of 

 the southwestern point, the old ledge is standing as a sort of broken wall 

 about two feet high ; it is more or less cut into by the sea, and large 

 boulders have been broken off from it on the sea face and thrown up on the 

 reef flat of the western face behind the raised edge, rising fully five to 

 seven feet, as in Rangiroa. 



On the south side the land rim is formed by large islands near the south 

 pass and a low reef extending to the islets on the east side. In the middle 

 of the lagoon, about due north of the south pass and near it, there is a well- 

 wooded islet. 



Anaa. 



Plates 51, fig. 1 ; SB, 53, Wl, 203. 



Anaa is about twenty miles long and six miles wide ; it is elliptical ; its 

 general trend is from the southeast to the northwest. It receives its name, 

 Chain Island, from the very regular dimensions of the islands forming its 

 land rim, so that a plot of it resembles a long bracelet with links of nearly 

 uniform size. The islands are well covered with cocoanut groves, and, al- 

 though there are many gaps between the islands and islets, there exists 

 only one very indifferent passage for boats into the lagoon. 



On the northwest shore of Anaa are fine outcrops of the old ledge 

 running at an angle to the shore line and separated by sandy beaches. 

 On the north side exists an inner line of islands (PI. 51, fig. 1) dividing the 

 lagoon into two very distinct parts. 



At the northwest point of Anaa there is a comparatively deep lagoon, a 

 secondary channel extends parallel with the shore line, from the base of 

 the outcropping old ledge to the Nullipore and Pocillipore edge of the reef 

 flat. This canal runs for quite a distance parallel with tlie coast line, and 

 expands into a large bay forming the pass or cut between two adjoining 

 islands (PI. 52, figs. 2, 3). The reef flat then becomes quite wide, — 500 to 

 600 feet. All the way from the west shore to the landing bight there are 



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