152 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION. 
bois blane (Hernandea peltata), while casuarinas grew everywhere along the shore. 
Under the coconuts was a pleasing undergrowth of papayas, acacias, castor-oil plants, 
and ferns, the first occurrence of the latter in any abundance since leaving the Chagos. 
The land was all formed of loose sand with some coral below, its surface being hardened 
for a few inches into stone, called pavier, a variety of tuffe. 
While the tide was still low we passed to the southern island over a sand-flat, — 
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singularly barren save for vast numbers of the black teat-fish, one of the best of 
Holothurians for making trepang. As we were caught by the tide, we necessarily had 
time to thoroughly explore the island, finding it in structure little different to its fellow. 
rf 
——_—__F Seg Miles 
Darros and St. Joseph Atoll, Amirante Group. E 14-16, dredgings of H.M.S. Sealark. 
It consists of three finger-shaped points tapering to the north with deep bays between, 
and was formed probably by the heaping-up of three sandbanks successively from eas 
to west, a fourth at the south subsequently connecting them. The westward bank is sti 
broadening on its somewhat narrow reef, while the eastern is washing away, having“to 
seaward a broad reef-flat covered with masses of rock (dipping to the west) and loos 
corals worn out of the same. Probably these about balance, while elsewhere there i 
little change, though the sand has consolidated into rock near the entrances of the bays. 
Marine life was everywhere scarce. <A solitary mangrove was growing in one of the 
bays, the sole attempt on the part of this plant to establish itself on any of the coral- 
