ELEVATIONS IN PACIFIC CORAL REGIONS. 369 
ed 
lat. 10° 17 N. and long. 109° 19! W.. is an elevated “atoll at 
least 100 feet, high, according to W. Harper Pease, as re- 
ported in the Proceedings of the California Academy of  ° 
Sciences, Vol. III., p. 199. 
b. Paumotu Archipelago. — The islands of this archipelago 
appear in general to have that height which the ocean may 
give to the materials. Nothing was detected indicating any 
general elevation in progress through the archipelago. The 
large extent of wooded land shows only that the islands have 
been long at their present level. There are examples of ele- 
vation in particular islands, however, some of which are of 
unusual interest. The instances examined by the Expedition 
are those of Honden Island, Dean’s Island, and Clermont 
Tonnerre. Besides these, Elizabeth Island has been described 
by Beechey, and, according to the same author, Ducie’s 
Island and Osnaburgh suggest some elevation. 
Honden Island or Henuake.—This island is wooded on its 
different sides, and has a shallow lagoon. The beach is eight 
feet high, and the land about twelve. There are three entrances 
to the lagoons, all of which were dry at low water, and one 
only was filled at high water. Around the lagoon, near the 
level of high tide, there were numerous deserted shells of the 
huge Tridacna, often a foot long, lying in cavities in the coral 
rock, precisely as they occur alive on the shore reef. As these 
Tridacnas evidently lived where the shells remain, and do not 
occur alive more than six or eight inches, or a foot at the most, 
above low tide, they prove, in connection with the other facts, 
an elevation of at least two feet. 
Nairsa or Dean’s Island—The south side of Dean’s 
Island, the largest of the Paumotus, was coasted along by the 
Peacock, one of the Sloops of War of the Wilkes Exploring 
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