158 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION 
though its light fibrous fruit is generally supposed to be particularly suitable for 
transport. 
We had one day’s more dredging on the Amirante Bank before we finally steamed 
round the north of the African Islands on our course to the Seychelles. It was a 
wretchedly unsatisfactory day with heavy rain-squalls, but to a certain degree rounded 
off our work on the bank. So far as organisms were concerned it yielded nothing new, 
but it gave indications of much more vigorous coral-life than in the south part of the 
bank. Lithothamnia and flat incrusting calcareous alge (Squamariaceze) were very 
abundant down to 40 fathoms, acting as consolidating organisms. The seaward slope of 
the bank to the north of African Islands was almost entirely formed of coral-blocks and 
as steep as any slope we met with on the cruise. North African Island, so far as we 
could see from the ship, appeared not dissimilar to Eagle Island, having much weathered 
sand-rock, perhaps due to elevation. 
From the Amirantes we set a course towards Bird Island, Seychelles, putting down a 
few soundings and taking serial temperatures en route. On the night of October 19th 
ol tkh 31 
3. Ss 
33 ar 8 
i 
: psec Ti 
North part of Seychelles Bank with Bird and Dennis Islands. F 1-9, dredgings of H.M.S. Sealark. 
we anchored to the west of Bird, where there is a considerable bank within the 
10-fathom line. It was formerly a guano island, but now the cream of its deposits has 
been quite skimmed and it has been relegated to coconuts. About its formation there 
is no doubt, the whole being low and very definitely coralline, the beaches pure coral- 
sand, and the deposits in the neighbourhood pure carbonate of lime. In this it resembles 
Dennis Island, which lies about 27 miles further east. Together they share the 
distinction of being the only lands on the rim of the Seychelles Bank, the other 
27 islands lying close together in its centre. They were both discovered about 1778, 
and were then covered with iand-tortoises, sirenians, and birds. ‘The tortoise was 
doubtless Testudo elephantina, now found only in Aldabra, and the birds were probably 
mainly Sula piscator, now so common in St. Pierre. The ‘*Vaches Marines,” often 
referred to in connection particularly with Dennis, can only have been a species of 
dugong (Halicore), but there is no record of their occurrence in the group within the 
