GEOLOGY AND T01>()(iTJAIMI Y ()F HAWAII. 93 



Geographic Positiox of the Tsi.axds. 



Considering' the Hawaiian Islands in relation to each other and to tiic rest 

 of the world, we find this wonderful group of mid-Pacific islands to he made up 

 of twenty-one islands and a number of other small islets that are contiguous 

 to the shores of the larg(n- ones. For the sake of convenience, the group, which 

 stretches for about 2.000 miles from southeast to noi-thwcst. has been divided 

 into the leeward or northwest, and the windward or inhabited chain. In the 

 leeward islands are grouped eight low coral islands and reefs, and five of the 

 lowest of the high islands. Beginning at the western extremity, the low Lironp 

 includes Ocean Island, ten feet high; Midway Island, fifty-seven feet higli; 

 Gambler Shoal, Pearl and Hermes Reef, Lisiansky Island, fifty feet high; 

 Laysan Island, forty feet high, and Maro and Dowsett Reefs. 



These are probably the tops of submerged mountains that have had tlieir 

 summits brought up to or above the surface of tlie ocean by the combined 

 action of the hardy reef-building corals, the waves, and tlie transporting; jiower 

 of the wind. The wind has had an important ])ai't in their final form, since it 

 has gathered up the dry saiul left above the ordinary action of the wave and 

 piled it, as at Midway, in the center of a secure enclosure, formed by an encircling 

 coral reef, or as at Laysan. to form a sand rim about an (devated coral lago;)n. 



Lying between the group of low islands and forming a coiuiecting link 

 with the high or inhabited group, are five islands, the lowest of the high islands. 

 They form a transition group between the coral and the volcanic islands and a 

 second division of the leeward chain, and are made up of Gardner Island. 170 

 feet high; French Frigates Shoal, 120 feet high; Xecker Island. 800 feet high; 

 Frost Shoal, and Xihoa or Bird Island, 1)03 feet high. 



Together with the low islands, they form the leeward chain of thirteen 

 islets, reefs and shoals that have a combined area of somethinu o^•el• six sijuare 

 miles, or about four thousand acres. With the exception of .Midway, which is 

 the relay station for the Commercial Pacific Cal)le Company's wii-e across the 

 Pacific, they are uninhabited at the present time. The entire cliain. with the 

 exception of Midway, has been set aside by the fedei-al goverinnent to form the 

 Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation, wliich. taken collectively, foi-nis tlie largest 

 and most populous bird colony in the world. 



To many these remote, shimuK^'ing, unitdinl)ited islands are de\-oid of intei-- 

 est ; to the naturalist, however, every si|uai'e foot of ihe siii-face, and all the 

 life that iidia])its them, has a.n interesting story to tell. 'I'he u-eolo^ist finds 

 in th(Mn subjects of the greatest interest and importance. The thrilling 

 story of their up-buildini:' through ceutui'ies by tiie tireless activity of the 

 tiny animal, the ct)ral polyp, that by natui'e is endowed with the mxsterions 

 l)ower of extracting cei'tain elements in solution from the sea water and lilth* 

 by little transforming them into a reef of solid linie-stone niasoiii-y. whicli. in 

 time, becomes the foundation of inhal)ited land is indeed most wonderful. 



