94 NATURAT; HISTORY OF HAWAII. 



As the formation and growth of coral islands and reefs has been a subject 

 profound enough to engage the attention of such thinkers as Darwin, Agassiz, 

 Dana, Wallace, and a score of others, it is small wonder that these coral islands, 

 which gem the surface of our summer seas, are invested with \dtal interest for 

 those who feel a scientific concern in them and who are permitted to study them. 



Ocean Island. 



The leeward chain furnishes interesting examples of the various tj-pes of 

 coral islands. Ocean Island, the extreme western end of the Hawaiian chain, 

 lies in 178° 29' 45" west longitude, and 28° 25' 45'^ north latitude, and is almost 

 at the antipodes from Greenwich, and, as it lies in the northern limit of the 

 coral belt, it furnishes an excellent example of a circular barrier atoll in mid- 

 oc(?an. The coral rim surrounds and forms a barrier alwut four small sand islets 

 and is approximately sixteen miles in circumference. The rim is broken for a 

 mile or more on the western side, but the lagoon enclosed is too shallow to 

 admit the entrance of sea-going ships. Over this low coral rim the curving line 

 of white breakers beat, forming a snowy girdle about the low islets that lie pro- 

 tected w^ithin. 



Midway Island. 



]\lidway Island is fifty-six miles to the east of Ocean Island, and, like it, 

 is made up of a low circular coral rim or atoll, six miles in diameter, averaging 

 five feet in height by twenty feet in width, which is open to the west. Like Ocean, 

 it has one fair-sized sand islet and one that is covered with shrubbery. These 

 islets lie in the southern part of the circle, about a mile apart, and are utilized as 

 stations by the cable company. The coral rim encloses an area of about forty 

 square miles of quiet water which attains a depth of eight fathoms. The island 

 was discovered in 1859 by Captain Brooks, A\ho took possession of it for the 

 United States. Attempts to utilize it as a coaling station were abandoned after 

 a single trial ; but in 1902 it was successfully occupied by the cable company, 

 and has since been regularly visited by vessels carrying provisions and supplies. 



Just prior to my visit in 19U2, which preceded the arrival of the cable by a 

 few months, the island had been visited and devastated by a party of poachers 

 engaged in securing birds' feathers for millinery purposes. The dead bodies of 

 thousands of birds, ruthlessly slaughtered by them for their wings and tails, 

 were thickly strewn over both islets. The reports made at the time, by the 

 writer, to the State Department and various officials in AVashington, was the 

 first step in the long campaign that finally resulted in the establishment of the 

 Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation. 



Gambier Siioal. 



Gambier Shoal is a circular atoll lying al)Out half way between Midway and 

 Pearl and Hermes Reef. The latter is an irregular oval atoll, about forty miles 

 in circumference, which encloses a dozen small islets of shifting sand. It was 



