426 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION 



VI. ASTOVE. 



Astove is situated in latitude 10° 6' S. and longitude 47° 45' E. ; the chart shows it to 

 be 2 miles long by 1£ miles broad, but the survey appears inaccurate and the island is 

 probably longer. 



In form it is an atoll with an extremely perfect land -rim encircling a large though 

 very shallow lagoon, which is in connection with the sea by one pass situate in the 

 south-east. The atoll is surrounded by a fringing reef which I was only able to investigate 

 near the pass where it is very narrow (about 200 yards). The long axis of the island runs 

 nearly north and south dividing it into an eastern and western portion of which I only 

 had time to visit the latter. 



The land-rim in the west measures from £ to ^ a mile in breadth and is slightly 

 curved on the seaward side, thus enclosing an open bay, the shores of which are sandy, 

 though at intervals coral rock cliffs intervene for short distances and also occupy the 



ASTOVE ISLAND 



Skadi fylirS C.E Batr.Gor' Survc_yorl89S. 

 LatlO°6:S,Lang 4T4£E.fft>m. Ouitt 27621 

 o 6 lo Cables or 



Fig. 1. From the Admiralty Chart of Astove. 



coast for half a mile to the north of the pass. Cliffs again form the north-western point 

 but give way to a sandy beach on the north (north-east) coast of the atoll ; here, as 

 everywhere throughout the region, cliffs are always much overhanging and are evidently 

 rapidly crumbling away. 



Immediately inside the beach in the western "bay" there is a narrow (100 yards) 

 sandy stretch somewhat resembling that on Picard Island, Aldabra ; it is covered with 

 a sparse scrub of common shore-zone plants, and may perhaps have an elevation of 1 8 feet 

 above high tide mark. Rising somewhat abruptly from the sandy zone, and perhaps 

 4 feet higher, is a stretch of coral rock passing to the lagoon shores, which in the north- 

 west are sandy but to the south-west are formed by low overhanging cliffs exactly like 

 the lagoon cliffs of Aldabra. In the north-west, near the lagoon, the wind has covered 

 the rock with low dunes, the sand being derived from the lagoon shore ; further south 



