318 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 
and the stones brought by logs with the floating pumice, beds 
of gypsum which have been made through the evaporation of 
sea-water (which holds it in solution) in the gradually drying 
lagoon-basins; and also large deposits of guano from the 
multitudes of sea birds that occupy them. Such are Jarvis, 
Baker’s, Howland’s, Malden’s, McKean’s, Birnie’s, Starbuck’s, 
Enderbury’s, and probably other islands in the dry central 
Pacific (Plate IX. and p. 168). As these deposits are con- 
nected with the completion of the coral island and its accom- 
panying reduction in size, and illustrate one of the ways by 
which new minerals are added to a destitute land, a few facts 
are here cited from an article in the “ American Journal of 
Science,” volume xxxiv. (1862), by J. D. Hague, who resided 
for several months on the islands he describes. 
Baker’s Island is situated in lat. 0° 13’ north, and long. 
176° 22’ west from Greenwich, and, excepting Howland’s 
Island, forty miles distant, is very remote from any other 
land. It is about one mile long and two thirds of a mile 
wide. The surface is nearly level; the highest point is 
twenty-two feet above the level of the sea, showing some 
evidence of elevation. 
Above the crown of the beach there is a sandy ridge 
which encircles the guano deposit. This marginal ridge is 
about one hundred feet wide on the lee side of the island, 
and is there composed of fine sand and small fragments of 
corals and shells, mixed with considerable guano; on the 
eastern, or windward, side it is much wider, and formed of 
coarser fragments of corals and shells, which, in their arrange- 
ment, present the appearance of successive beach formations. 
Encircled by this ridge lies the guano deposit, occupying the 
central and greater part of the island. The surface of this 
deposit is nearly even, but the hard coral bottom which forms 
