98 NATURAL HISTORY OF HAWAII. 



French States-General in 1789. 'The i.sland. as shdwn liy tlic steep sea dirt's, 

 is the remains of a soil-capped volcanic crater, that is about 300 feet hiyh, 

 three-fourths of a mile in length, by 500 feet in width, at the widest part. It is 

 .surrounded by shallow water; there being an extensive shoal, principally on 

 the south side. 



This island and near-l>y Xihoa, or Bird Island, are of special interest as 

 they were visited in ancient times by hunting and fishing parties from Kauai, 

 who made th' journe.v to it in their outrigger canoes. As Xecker is 250 

 miles distant from the nearest inhabited island,-' the journey thither wnuUl 

 seem to be one not to be lightly undertaken. But as the island was one of the 

 few sources of supply of the coveted frigate and tropic bird feathers much used 

 in their feather work, the .iourney seems to have been made more or less regu- 

 larly. 



The level portion on top of the island of Xecker is more or less ct)vered 

 with a number of curiously formed stone enclosures, which may have been 

 tem])les,^ in which have been foiuid several remarkable stone images, fifteen 

 inches or more in height. These, together with a number of curiously formed 

 stone dishes with which they were associated, are now in the Bishop Museum. 

 They are of such xinusual design and workmanship as to make them appear 

 relics of some race other than the Hawaiian. However, as the Hawaiian is the 

 only race known to have visited these remote islands at so early a period, and 

 as they were by nature a very religious people, there still remains the possi- 

 liility that the relics, including the stone enclosures, if not of their making, 

 were at least known to and pmlialily nuide use of by them. 



XiiiO-\. 



Xihoa comjiletes the list of the leeward uninhabited islands of the Ha- 

 waiian group. It is 150 miles east of Xecker and 120 miles northwest from 

 Xiihau, the nearest inhabited island. It is the highest island in the leeward 

 chain, its summit being a pinnacle at the northwest end which rises 900 feet 

 above the sea. The island is about a mile in length by 2000 feet in breadth, 

 Avliieh uives it an area of 250 acres. It is inimistakably the eroded remains of 

 a Very aueieiit and deeply submerged crater, the outer slopes of which have been 

 Worn .iway. leaving only a portion of the familiar, hollowed, volcanic bowl. 

 Tile iriati I'ials of wliich it is composed are similar to those of the high islands, 

 and there is every evidence that it is even more ancient than Kauai. 



Dr. Sereno Bishop, who visited it in 1885 as the geologist of a party, headed 

 by the ihen Prnicess Liliuokalani, declared the island to lie a pair of clinker 

 pinnacles out of the inner cone of a once mighty volcanic dome, which has been 

 eaten down by wind and rain for thousands of feet during unreckoned ages. 

 From the large number of basaltic dikes which cut the island from end to end. 

 he was led to infer that Nihoa is the result of an extremely protracted period 

 of igneous activity. I'erhaps this hoary reumant of the (last nuiy at one time 



