380 



J. STANLEY GARDINER. 



The reef-flat around the whole atoll is quite similar to that on the west of Minikoi, where 

 no land exists (p. 43). Behind it the boulder zone everywhere continues, consisting mostly of 

 loose masses, but with here and there to the south larger rocks, apparently due to elevation. The 

 whole encircling reef to the south is nowhere more than 500 to 600 yards broad, and to the 

 west appears scarcely any wider. The outer contour of the atoll is almost as drawn in the 

 Admiralty Chart so that, as the encircling reef is charted as very much broader, the lagoon would 

 appear to have enlarged somewhat since the survey. The encircling reef is fringed against the 

 lagoon with living corals, and its edge, like such shoals as arise separately in the lagoon, falls 

 precipitously or even overhangs its base. 



II. South Mahlosmadulu (Fig. 94). 

 Our visit to this bank was made under the most unfavourable circumstances in that 



A/aira Faro 



liV*' 





Fig. 94. South Mahlosmadulu Bank {chiefly from the Admiralty Chart). 



the weather was dead calm during the three weeks we spent in it, and our crew were not 

 as yet accustomed to the working of a schooner. As it was, we commandeered fishing boats 



