50 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION, 
the manager, we returned immediately for our gear and finally got settled ashore by 
midday, the Sealark at once weighing anchor to continue her soundings round Great 
Chagos. We retained our native servants, together with the ‘ Xanthus, a skiff, and 
their crews, consisting of 1st Class Petty Officer Titcombe, Leading-Stoker Carter, and 
A.B.s Bridgeman and Greenslade, the latter a native of Jersey and quite at home with 
the Creole French spoken by the people. 
Egmont Atoll * is slightly smaller than Salomon, and consists of six islands situated 
on an oval-shaped reef, extending west by north and east by south. It has only a single 
boat passage into its lagoon situated very near its most northerly part and consisting of 
a dipping of its reef down to a maximum depth of 23 fathoms below the surface for a 
<, 
Ns 
fle Lubine Nr 
2 
Sea Miles 
Egmont Atoll (from the Admiralty chart). 
length of about a mile. The atoll is peculiar in that the reef of its southern side attains 
an average breadth of roughly 1000 yards, and, gradually narrowing at its ends, merges 
into that of its northern side, which is not more than a quarter as much across. The 
enclosed lagoon is four and a half miles long by a mile to a mile and a quarter broad. 
It varies in depth from a maximum of 14 fathoms close to the passage. Our own 
soundings showed that the bottom might reasonably be described as gradually rising 
from this depth up to the encircling reefs on all sides, the angle of the slope varying 
with its distance away. The sand covering the bottom becomes to a certain extent 
coarser as the depth decreases. The whole lagoon is studded with shoals, most of which 
* Horsburgh (Joc. cit. p. 134) states that the islands were seen by M. de Surville in 1756, by the ‘ Egmont’ in 1760, 
by M. de Roslan in 1771, and surveyed by Capt. Blair 1786. They were then all covered with timber, three 
having coconuts. Moresby (loc. cit. p. 64) calls them the ‘Six Islands,” and states that in 1837 they produced 
6000 gallons of oil. He found abundance of pigs and poultry, pigeons and fat-tailed land-crabs (Birgus latro). 
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