202 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
with land and in being considerably larger. It has an extreme length 
of 9 miles and breadth of 7 miles. The circumference of the atoll is 
about 24 miles, and of this only 10 miles at most consist of land. The 
latter is divided up into eight main islands and numerous small islets, 
but of all these only two are inhabited. During my stay, which was 
only one of four days, I visited four of the larger islands, and on my 
return journey I again had two days on the atoll, which enabled me to 
cursorily examine two more islands and take a representative series of 
photographs. 
The results of the two visits may be outlined as follows:—The 
islands in all cases are fundamentally of coral rock, though sand has 
been piled on to them by the wind, and in places has completely hidden the 
rocky base beneath sand dunes and ridges. The rock is typical elevated 
coral rock, and, with the difference that metamorphosis has been more 
extensive, much resembles that of Astove. 
The island shores are either rocky or sandy, but in either case show 
unmistakable signs of rapid erosion. On one island (Wizard) the 
remains of a house, now in the lagoon, enabled me to calculate the extent 
of the erosion as being 15 yards since 1893, an average of a yard a year. 
Evidence of the former extent of the land was obtained from the islets 
and table-shaped rocks on the reef, and I have little doubt that at one 
time the atoll was almost entirely capped with a ring of land. 
The lagoon has the greatest average depth of any atoll visited, though 
the channels in the Aldabra lagoon are deeper. There are no islands 
situated anywhere in it, and no suggestions can be made as to its former 
extent. The bottom is largely sandy, and there are signs of a tendency 
to replace the original rocky islands by sand shoals and cays. There 
are two passes through the reef; these are both situated on the southern 
side of the atoll. The reef was examined at a point on the south-west ; 
the seaward edge was conspicuous for the vigorous growth of Litho- 
thamnia; no live coral was observed in this zone. Inside the edge 
Lithothamnia were still abundant, but were chiefly encrusting forms 
found on broken pieces of dead coral flung on the reef. Passing to the 
lagoon was a sort of buttress zone, with channels and pools containing 
a little live coral. The lagoon at this point was very sandy, and almost 
dry at low tide. 
The land vegetation somewhat resembles that of Astove on the rocky 
places, but is not so dense, and owing to the presence of large quantities 
of sand perhaps would be more like that of Farquhar. -A large man- 
grove swamp exists on the lagoon side of the chief island (Menai). In 
the dry season the islands are much more parched and dried up than 
Astove, but during the wet season crops of maize seemed to flourish 
remarkably well. Guano has been found on several of the islands, and 
a considerable quantity exported, as well as phosphate rock, which was 
found underneath the guano. It was interesting to discover in the latter 
rock the eggs of the giant land tortoise, though unfortunately no remains 
were found to determine the species. A collection of land animals was 
made, and the fauna appears to be identical with that of other islands 
in this region. The settlement is small (twenty people) and the inhabi- 
tants employed as at Astove, 
