1898.] Funafuti, Rotuma and Fiji. 445 



PART III. 



The Reefs of Fiji. 



The Fijian Group has within its limits, as many observers 

 have pointed out, every variety of reef from the narrow fringing 

 to the well-formed atoll. Although there are many atolls in the 

 Lau, or Eastern Group, there is not one with any considerable 

 portion of its rim converted into land. To the east of the Ngele 

 Levu lagoon is a small island, divided by two channels into three 

 parts, but these are not more than 2 miles in length, while the reef 

 is over 40 miles in circumference and except for passages to the 

 south-west everywhere awash. The Nukusemanu and Nanuku 

 reefs in the Ringold islands are the north and south ends of an 

 atoll-reef over 80 miles in circumference, the greater part sub- 

 merged to a depth of 6 — 8 fathoms. Wailangilala is not properly 

 one of the islets of an atoll, being too high for such; it is, however, 

 formed of coral rock, and is probably the remains of an upheaved 

 coral island, the rest of which has been washed away. Other 

 atoll-reefs have only a few rocks but such are scattered on all 

 reefs, freely exposed to the seas, and are what I have before 

 called negroheads. These are especially abundant on the reefs 

 to the south-east of Viti Levu, and are simply masses of reef-rock 

 which have been torn from the outside and deposited in their 

 present positions, often several yards from the edge of the reef in 

 hurricanes, or other bad storms ; some measure 6 — 8 feet in 

 height and must weigh many tons 1 . Barrier reefs too in Fiji have 

 no islets, a possible exception being Ono-i-lau, which has a number 

 of small islets to the east ; two of these appear on the chart to 

 have. low hills and probably all are the remains of a larger island, 

 which has been washed away. 



Another characteristic is the extreme regularity of the 100 

 fathom line round all reefs, freely exposed to the ocean. Off 

 prominent points it may be a little further out, but there are no 

 stretches of sea of any extent off the reefs with a less depth than 

 this ; different atoll and barrier reefs, however near they may 

 lie to one another, are not connected by a less depth. The section 

 outside all is nearly the same, a gentle slope to about 40 fathoms 

 and then a sudden steep. There is further no essential difference 

 off those parts of Taviuni, which have no reef but the sea directly 

 washing their shores ; the bottom here slopes to 40 fathoms in less 



1 Capt. Wilson estimated that one, thrown up on the reef at Mbenga in the 

 hurricane of 1879, weighed 40 tons. 



VOL. IX. PT. VIII. 36 



