NORTH MALE. 49 



of water, and a small sand bank thrown up on the outer edge of the rim 

 where the corals were awash. Still further, a large bank of the same char- 

 acter, but with a sand bank rising a couple of feet, and on which a few 

 grasses and shrubs had obtained a foothold ; while in the distance a similar 

 bank had been blown to a sufficient size and height to be covered with 

 small trees and be surrounded by a considerable belt of low bushes. 



Passing out of North Male through the wide passage west of Hembadu, 

 we could not fail to compare it with the narrow passes which characterize 

 the entrances into so many of the Pacific atolls. Hembadu Pass is fully 

 four miles in width, with from seventeen to twenty-two fathoms in depth ; 

 and flanked by low faros, it gave one the impression of still greater width 

 and marked more sharply the contrast to such narrow passes as those of 

 the Paumotus, Ellice, Gilbert, and more northern atolls. 



The passes into the central area of North Male are only low portions 

 of the rim separating the more elevated parts of the plateau, upon which 

 the faros have grown either on the outer face or in the inner area of 

 North Male. An examination of the soundings within North Male as well 

 as those of any other group of the central and northern Maldives shows 

 how great are the irregularities of the bottom of the secondary plateaus of 

 the Maldives. To the westwax'd of Hembadu the bottom is very uneven; 

 on our way out of North Male through the wide pass to the west of Hem- 

 badu, we found rapid changes in depth, and could distinctly see the exten- 

 sion of the coral patches indicated on the charts scattered over a good 

 part of our track. They extended all the way across the northern part 

 of the pass, west of Hembadu. Off the eastern face of the faros of the 

 western face of North Male one passes rapidly from fifteen to thirty fathoms ; 

 in the vicinity of an agglomeration of small faros the depth varies from 

 twenty to thirty fathoms. The lines of soundings as they exist throughout 

 North Male indicate a series of elevations rising somewhat abruptly at from 

 twenty-four to twenty fathoms; they constitute the base upon which the 

 banks, faros, or islands and islets which stud North Male have been built 

 up. This indicates a condition of the bottom of the central area of North 

 Male different from the great level and unbroken flats which characterize 

 the bottom of the lagoons of the Pacific atolls. There the great fall in 



