324 "ALBATROSS" TROPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



are no sinks or ponds in this depressed region. The bottom is sandy and 

 covered with scattered broken or beach-worn corals washed in from the sea 

 face of the island. 



The island is not more than 200 yards in width ; back of the eastern 

 face of the trough the land rises gradually to the summit of the sea beach. 

 This is flanked by a reef flat varying from 100 to 300 feet ; upon it 

 are scattered loose heads of corals of large size ; many of them have 

 been driven together on the beach, forming a continuous wall of about 

 ten to fourteen feet in height. This wall of beach-worn coral is underlaid 

 by beach rock conglomerate and the whole island is covered with masses 

 and fragments of coral washed in from the reef on the sea face. At a 

 distance of about two thirds the length of the island towards the southern 

 extremity we could trace these masses of corals thrown completely across 

 the island, where they have formed the coral boulder spits of the inner 

 face of the lagoon, underlaid by the beach rock conglomerate, as I have 

 described them on the sea face of the beach. 



The soil of Arhno is fairly productive. Its larger islands are covered 

 with grass, fine groves of cocoanut trees, with magnificent breadfruit, 

 Pandanus, and Pisonias, and the usual belt of low vegetation growing 

 upon the summit of the beach. 



The long island of Ine occupies the southern part of the atoll ; it does 

 not differ from that which flanks the eastern face. There are said to be 

 several boat passages on the southwest face of the lagoon (PI. 228, fig. 4). 



We steamed out of the atoll through Dodo Pass, and skirted the eastern 

 face of Arhno on our way round the northern point of the atoll. On the 

 northern point a Y-shaped land rim is thrown up on a wide flat (PI. 228, 

 fig. 4) ; at its southern base the islands have united in a single crescent- 

 shaped island, extending from one side of the spit to the other. The shanks 

 are formed by lines of islands on the opposite faces of the northern point ; 

 they are separated by wide gaps and enclose a secondary lagoon in the 

 centre of the northern reef flat. Where the larger island cuts directly 

 across the secondary lagoon of the northern point a shallow wide bay 

 forms a closed area ; its western face is formed by the islands thrown up 

 on that face of the wide flat of the northern point. The northern extension 



