DESCRIPTION OF THE ATOLLS. 

 North Male. 



Plates 1, S, 4 •• Sa, fg. 6 ; 8 b, Jir/s. 11, 19; 8 c, fig. 2^ ; 9-18 : 19, fig. 1. 



North Male is irregularly triangular in form (PI. 4), with a western 

 convex side ; the northwestern and northeastern faces are concave ; it is about 

 thirty-two miles long with a greatest width of twenty-two miles. Over 

 fifty islands, rings, and banks are enclosed within the basin of North Male ; 

 it is flanked both on the east and west faces by large faros, only on a few 

 of those of the west faces are found islets. The principal islands are on the 

 southeast face from Mirufnri to Wilingili Island to the west of Male Island. 

 There is no group in the Maldives in which there is such a large number of 

 rings (faros) cropping up in all directions to the surface or within three 

 or four fathoms from the surface. These submarine rings or embryo sub- 

 merged atolls are specially numerous immediately towards the north of Male 

 Island and in the northern part of the group to the southwest of Mirufuri 

 (PI. 4). A great number of small banks are dotted over the centi\al area 

 of North Male, either reaching the surface or awash or at depths of three 

 to four fathoms. These banks as well as the rings generally rise from 

 a depth of from twenty to thirty fathoms. There are comparatively few 

 islands scattered through the central area of North Male. j\Ir. Gardiner has 

 noticed marked discrepancies between Moresby's Charts of North Male and 

 the positions he assigned to several of the reefs. This may be due to the 

 large areas of that atoll left unsurveyed within Moresby's lines of sounding 

 and the difficulty of locating from a low level rings and low islands which 

 become clearly outlined from a higher station like the bridge of a steamer. 

 Wherever we followed lines of soundings we usually found the chart 

 wonderfully accurate, but naturally in the unsurveyed portions we were 

 frequently at sea. 



