' FROM ISLAND UNTO ISLAND: 339 



group, is Palmyra. CalJen Eeef, which is 40 miles to the 

 northward of Palmyra, had not, in 1876, assumed the dis- 

 tinctive features of an island ; however, according to Dr. 

 T. H. Streets, of the United States Navy, from whose inter- 

 esting paper in the ' American Naturalist' I draw most of my 

 data on scientific matters in connection with this group, it will 

 soon become so. 



Palmyra represents the second stage in the formation of a coral 

 island ; it now consists of fifty-eight small islets, thickly clothed 

 with vegetation, and arranged in the form of an elongated 

 horseshoe, opened to the westward, and enclosing four lagoons, 

 which is, generally speaking, an exceptional formation. The 

 interest attaching, however, to the Fanning's Group concentrates 

 itself in Washington Island. This is in fact an obliterated 

 atoll. In place of the usual salt-water lagoon there is a lake 

 of fresh water, 1 mile long and half a mile wide, with a depth 

 of 4 fathoms in its deepest part. No shore platform comes out 

 from the land at low water, but the sea at all stages of the tide 

 breaks directly on the beach, except at the angles of the island, 

 where reefs extend a certain distance into the sea. The beach 

 shelves rather abruptly towards the water's edge. The highest 

 point of the land is only 15 feet high. All traces of the former 

 passage from the sea into the lagoon have been obliterated. 



The water of the lake is perceptibly brackish, and the only 

 life it is said to contain is a species of eel and shrimp, both of 

 which are different from anything found in the water sur- 

 rounding the island. 



The Fanning's Group is noted for its handsome breed of 

 Polynesian parrots, which are distinguished by the pre- 

 dominance of red in their plumage. 



Captain Fanning discovered the islands which bear his 

 name in 1798, and the following extract from his 'Voyages' 



22 2 



