June I, 1876] 



NATURE 



103 



hair is frizzled, not woolly, very thick, and worn in the 

 shape of a huge round mop ; it was partly bleached by 

 lime, or coloured red by lime and ochre ; black and white 

 feathers and coronals of scarlet Hibiscus flowers were 

 worn on their heads ; the face was smeared with black or 

 red pigment ; with the exception of a few ornaments the 

 body was entirely naked ; the skin dark-brown in the 

 shade, warmed to a rich red-brown m the sunlight. A 

 band of tappa, variously ornamented, encircled the middle 

 of the upper arm on both sides, and into this they stick, 

 towards the outside of the arm, large bunches of the 

 fresh green and white leaves of a beautiful narrow-leaved 

 Croton. The natives were well armed with strong bows and 

 arrows, the latter five to six feet long, with heads bristling 

 with barbs. In almost every canoe there were stone 

 hatchets mounted on hard-wood handles, closely resem- 

 bling those found in Denmark ; they were made of a 

 hard, close-grained green stone, taking a jade-like polish. 

 The canoes had generally a grotesquely-carved prow, the 

 paddles being of hard wood, leaf-shaped, and often 

 prettily carved. 



In the course of the afternoon Capt. Thomson and 

 Prof. Wyville Thomson went in the galley to an island 

 where there was a village, to ascertain the temper of the 

 natives, and see if it were safe to go about freely. They 

 were rowed to a sandy beach, and made signs that they 

 wished to land, but the whole po )ulation, consisting chiefly 

 of women and boy s, all armed with bows, turned out with the 

 most determined demonstrations of hostility. The women 

 were not prepossessing, the young girls were perfactly 

 naked, and wore no ornaments ; the matrons wore a fringe 

 of rough bark-cloth round their loins. The village con- 

 sisted of some twenty to thirty huts, some on land under 

 the trees, but most of them built on a platform raised a 

 few feet above the surface of the sea on piles, and communi- 

 cated with the shore by planks removed at pleasure. An- 

 other boat sent off to get sights had been caught hold of 

 by the natives and plundered, but no attempt at retaliation 

 had been made by the crews. Had things gone on well, 

 the Chal/en(^er would have remained at Humboldt Bay 

 for five days, but Capt. Thomson made up his mind not 

 to submit to the pilfering that was going on, nor to risk 

 the chance of a rupture, and after careful consideration 

 and consultation, went on towards Admiralty Island the 

 same evening. During the afternoon the Captain, Prof. 

 Wyville Thomson, and Mr. Murray, managed to land on 

 the shore of the bay by going in a canoe with some 

 natives, and during an hour's ramble on shore, Mr. Mur- 

 ray had the good luck to see three of the wonderful 

 crested ground pigeons of the genus Goura, which are 

 nearly as large as turkeys. 



During the next week the ship gradually made her way, 

 with light winds and heavy rains, and close depressing, 

 equatorial weather, past the Schouten Islands and Hermit 

 Island towards Admiralty Island, where it arrived on the 

 3rd of March, and anchored in a lovely bay in eighteen 

 fathoms ; this they called Nares Bay, in compliment to 

 the head of the Arctic Expedition, their former captain. 

 The natives are Papuan Melaresians, but partake 

 more of the characters of the Papuans of New Ireland 

 and New Britain than of those of New Guinea. Here 

 bows were unknown and the natives used spears, with 

 heavy heads of obsidian and light shafts 6 to 7 feet long ; 

 they also use long sharp knives or daggers of obsidian, 

 and almost every man had over his shoulder a neatly 

 mounted little adze made of a small piece of hoop iron ; 

 a few carried implements of the same form, but the 

 cutting part made of a piece of a thick shell ground 

 down. Here the natives made no great opposition to the 

 party landing, only hurrying them past or away from their 

 villages and warning their women to keep out of sight. 

 Sometimes the curiosity of the women would overcome 

 thoir discretion, and little groups would come out to see 

 the strangers. These were anytning but pleasing-looking ; 



they wore no clothing except two fringes of grass or palm- 

 leaves. In the course of a few days all the party were 

 quite at home with the natives, and went and came as 

 they pleased. The natives were found to be totally igno- 

 rant of the use of tobicco and spirits ; but though they 

 showed iT>any good points, yet there are the gravest sus- 

 picions that they dispose of their dead in a very economi- 

 cal though hideously repulsive way. Some ot the small 

 islands literally swarmed with the beautiful large nutmeg- 

 pigeons. 



On the loth of March, the Challenger steamed out of 

 Nares Harbour, intending to call at one of the more 

 western of the Caroline Islands, and perhaps at some of 

 the Ladrone group, but the explorers were so very unfortu- 

 nate in the wind-j that they were driven to the west of both 

 groups, and never again saw land until they sighted the 

 Japanese coast on the nth of April. This cruise was by 

 far the most trying one during the commission. The 

 weather for the greater part of the time had been exces- 

 sively sultry and depressing, and before entermg on it 



Fig. 12. — Eadularian. 



they had been nearly a year in the Tropics. The section 

 from the Admiralty Islands to Japan, 2,250 miles long, 

 was practically meridional ; the observing stations were 

 twelve in number and pretty regu'arly distributed. The 

 greatest depth was found on the 23rd of March, in 4,575 

 fathoms. With the exception of two soundings taken by 

 the Tuscarora off the east coast of Japan, in 4>643 2i"d 

 4,655 fathoms respectively, this is the deepest trustworthy 

 sounding on record. A second sounding to check the first 

 gave 4,475 fathoms, and in this the tube of the sounding- 

 machme contained an excellent sample of the bottom, which 

 was of a very peculiar character, consisting almost entirely 

 of the siliceous shells of Radiolaria. In these the body 

 may have a more or less fully developed external siliceous 

 skeleton minutely fenestrated, and often presenting very 

 remarkable and beautiful forms (Fig. 10), or the skeleton 

 may be essentially internal and be formed of a number 

 of siliceous spicules radiating fiom a centre round which 

 the sarcode is accumulated as in Xiphacantha (Fig. 11), 

 Or again they may give off a set of finely anastomosing 

 branches which form one or several concentric lacey 

 shells, which invest the sarcode nucleus as in Haliomma 



