Report of a I'isit to Midway Island. 39 



Stretching from a point west by north from the spot where we 

 stood, and extending from there about the southeast and north of 

 us, could be seen the line of encircling breakers. Coral rocks 

 awash were visible on the reef almost the whole wa}- around. 

 Thus, on the sides mentioned is formed an irregular coral barrier 

 which is about six miles in its greatest diameter. To the north- 

 west of our point of observation the reef is broken up or wanting. 

 The entrance to the lagoon and into Wells Harbor is at the ex- 

 treme south side of the open portion of the reef, and is about three- 

 quarters of a mile in width. The remaining northern portion is 

 ver}' shallow, with narrow tortuous channels through the masses 

 of st^bmerged coral rock. 



Well to the south and east of this lagoon enclosure are located 

 the two bits of land which are designated as Sand and Eastern 

 Island respe(5lively. The one which served as a point of general 

 observation is little more than a barren, blinding heap of sand, of 

 irregular and constantly var3-ing form, forty-three feet high; one 

 mile and a quarter long by three-quarters broad more or less. 

 Here and there the sand has been heaped up in piles a few feet 

 high by the wind. On the top of most of these dunes a few hardy 

 shrubs and grasses manage to subsist, and form the onlj' relief for 

 the ej^e in what is little else than a waste of shifting sand. Not 

 far from the sailors' cabin referred to were a few graves, marked 

 by three rude wooden crosses, w^hich added the last touch to a 

 picture of desolation such as I had never before witnessed. 



To the east a mile or more, but connected with Sand Island 

 by a narrow submerged sand spit lies Eastern Island. Its roughly 

 formed triangular outline can be seen from so slight an elevation 

 as that on which we stand, for it is nowhere more than twenty-five 

 feet above sea level. Compared with the island just described it 

 presents an interesting contrast, for it is clothed in green down to 

 the beach, and differing thus in its flora, it differs .still more in the 

 number of birds which inhabit it. What freak of old ocean has 

 placed these two specks of land side by side, under apparently the 

 same conditions, and has covered the one with low shrubs, creep- 

 ing plants and grasses, and has left the other an uninviting heap 

 of sand ? Eastern Island is smaller than its neighbor, being ap- 

 proximately one mile and one-quarter in length by half a mile 

 wide in the broadest part. The centre is a trifle lower than the 



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