peel) J 
No. [IX.—DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPEDITION (continued from p. 55) 
By J. Stantey Garpiner, IA, F.L.S., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College 
and Demonstrator of Animal Morphology in the University of Cambridge, and 
C. Forster Cooper, W.A4., Trinity College, Cambridge. 
(Plates 14-18 and Text-figures 25-46.) 
Read 20th June, 1907. 
ConTENTs. 
Page 
hit — rare wee Manritiuento Seychelles it, 1.25 \0n/s4\delenc sd weeds va wale wale aeles 111 
Appendix A. List of the Dredging-Stations .................0ceee ees 163 
Appendix B. List of the Stations for Plankton...............ce0sceeee 169 
Part 11. —Wauritius to Seychelles. 
Or the three Mascarene Islands, so called after the Portuguese navigator Dom Pedro 
Mascarenhas who discovered them in 1505, Mauritius is the most important. It is, 
however, the intermediate in size, being 34 miles in a north and south direction by 22 
broad, and covering an area of 713 square miles, while Réunion or Bourbon is 89 by 28 
miles and Rodriguez 10 by 4 miles. All three lie almost on the same line of latitude 
(20° S.), Réunion 370 miles to the east of Madagascar, Mauritius 100 miles further east, 
and Rodriguez another 320 miles still further east. All three are of volcanic formation, 
but Réunion alone shows recent activity. It is a mass of peaks and cones, the whole 
centre of the island being over 5000 feet in height, culminating in the Piton des Neiges, 
10,069 feet. Fournaise or Grand Brile, 8618 feet, is still an active crater, frequently 
throwing up small quantities of cinder and ash, though there has been no lava-flow since 
1860. Limestone is said to occur in several places, but whether at any considerable 
height above the sea is uncertain. Rodriguez with upraised coral at each end has a 
basaltic ridge, culminating in the centre of the island in Mount Limon, 1300 feet high. 
It is noted for its beautiful basaltic pillars and for its limestone caverns, which were 
explored in 1874 by the Transit of Venus Expedition for the bones of the Solitaire and 
of Land-Tortoises *. 
* Trans. Roy. Soc. vol. 168, 1879, p. 290. 
“On the south-west, the central yoleanic ridge gradually descends, the ravines become less deep, and the ground 
spreads out into a large coralline limestone plain. The demarcation betwixt the limestone and the volcanic rock is 
very sharp, but isolated patches of limestone are met with on the surface of the volcanic region, in the vicinity of 
the main mass. The caves from which the bones of the Solitaire and other extinct birds have been obtained occur in 
SECOND SERIES.— ZOOLOGY, VOL. XII. 17 
