CHAPTER IX 
EXPERIENCES OF A GEOLOGIST IN THE 
FIJI ISLANDS 
By A. O. THoMAsS 
The writer was a member of the University of Iowa scientific 
expedition to the Fiji Islands and New Zealand during the summer 
of 1922. The purpose of the expedition was to secure zoological, 
botanical and geological museum and classroom material and to 
gain first-hand knowledge of other parts of the earth—a very 
valuable asset as every teacher knows. The Fiji islands are noted 
for their luxuriant tropical flora and for their famous coral reefs. 
The relation of the latter to the geography and geological history 
of the group has been a subject of much investigation. Moreover, 
the Fijians themselves present a never-ending source of interest. 
The Fiji archipelago is made up of a chain of far-flung islands 
some two hundred in number. They are arranged in the form of 
a crescent hundreds of miles across yet on a map they occupy but 
a dot on the vast Pacific. Eighty of the two hundred are inhab- 
ited; each of the others is but a few acres, more or less, of bare 
rock or coral sand. Vitilevu, the largest island, is eighty by one 
hundred miles in extent and has an area equivalent to about a 
dozen counties in Iowa. It lies within the crescent and toward its 
western horn. The group is astride the one hundred eightieth 
meridian. The international date line formerly passed through a 
village on the island of Taviuni in which a canny Scotchman is 
said to have kept a tavern built across the line. The bar at the 
west end ran till midnight Saturday, closed promptly, while the 
one at the opposite end opened, for it was still Saturday there. 
Sunday violation was thus avoided. The date line is now in the 
open ocean far to the east. 
At dusk on the day of June 3-4, we sighted the sporadic out- 
post of the Fiji group and during the night slipped quietly 
through Nanuku passage into Koro sea within the crescent. Vanua- 
levu, the second largest island, was on the right; Vitilevu, with 
its encircling coral reef was ahead. This great coral platform, 
miles in width, is trenched by a tortuous passage leading to the 
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