32 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION. 
lagoon in a ring unbroken save to the north by a single passage with 3 fathoms of water. 
It lies 13 miles to the east of Peros, and it is 54 miles in a south-west and north-east 
direction by 8 miles broad; its lagoon is relatively large and varies in depth up to a 
maximum of 17 fathoms. All the islands are fully planted with coconuts, except tle 
Diable, which is a mere rocky and bush-covered patch of land. The islands belong to the 
“ Société Huilitre de Salomon et Trois Fréres,” a company with its headquarters at 
Mauritius. The produce amounts to about 1,800,000 coconuts a year*, Takamaka 
yielding 17,000 a month and Boddam about 60,000. 
Fig. 12. 
%, 
7 
Coconut Mill and Manager’s House at Tle Boddam, Salomon. 
The establishment was on the latter island, which is named after a former governor 
of Mauritius, and consisted of Mr. Sauvage (Administrator) and M. Des Marest (Sub- 
Administrator) with their families, and about 30 coolies with their wives and children, 
The islands, however, were greatly undermanned, owing to a sad fatality which occurred 
to the atoll in 1904. A boat manned by ten men, taking 7 days’ provisions, went off 
on January 25 of that year to Nelson Island, 21 miles to the south, the only island on 
the north side of the great Chagos Bank, to take the eggs and young of the frigate- 
* Moresby, in 1837 (Joc. cit.), states that the yield of oil was 6000 gallons per annum, and that pigs and poultry 
could be obtained in abundance. He did not himself visit the group, his second in command, Lieut. F. F. Powell, 
a much inferior surveyor, making the chart. 
The first chart was derived from a survey by Capt. Blair, of the Hon, East India Company’s Marine, in 1786. 
His account of the islands is given in James Horsburgh’s ‘ Directions for Sailing to and from the Hast Indies,’ 
1809, p. 150, According to this work they were named after the French ship ‘Salomon,’ Capt. Bourde, who 
saw them in 1776, but Capt. Blair called them Governor Boddam’s islands. ‘“ From Noy. 21st to the 25th he 
(Capt. Blair) remained there taking in wood and water.” “They caught 20 turtle, and a sufficient supply of fish, 
but the latter were not so plentiful as at Diego Garcia, probably occasioned by the number of seals,” 
