16 EXPEDITION OF THE "ALBATROSS," 1899-1900. 



out above the general level, and has a very narrow and shallow entrance 

 passable for boats only. Some of its islands are wooded and appear to 

 have been formed by accretion of sand from the decomposing ledges of 

 the lagoon. Tlie outer land-rim appears as if formed by sand-banks driven 

 in from the sea face and also driven out from the lagoon side by the action 

 of the waves. It is evident that a lagoon such as Matahiva could readily 

 be closed by such a process and the sea no longer have access to it, as it 

 now has only one very narrow and very shallow boat-passage connectino- the 

 lagoon with the sea on the lee side. 



It was with great interest that we approaclied Makatea, as it is the 

 only high elevated island of which Dana speaks as occurring in the west- 

 ern Paumotus.^ For though he mentions some others as possibly haviu"- 

 been elevated five to six feet, yet he considered them all, as well as 

 Makatea (Metia, or Aurora, of Dana) as modern elevated reefs. From the 

 very description given by him of the character of the cliffs and of the 

 surface of Makatea, I felt satisfied that it was composed of the same 

 elevated coralliferous limestone so characteristic of the elevated reefs of 

 Fiji, and which from the evidence of the fossils and the character of the 

 rock, both Mr. Dall and myself have been led to regard as of Tertiary 

 age. 



As we approached the island from the northwest it soon became evident 

 that it presented all the characteristics to which I had become so accus- 

 tomed in Fiji, and, upon landing, tliis was found to be the case. The 

 cliffs had the same appearance as those of Vatu Leile, Ongea, Mango, 

 Karabara, Yangasa, and many other elevated islands of Fiji. There were 

 fewer fossils, perhaps, but otherwise the petrographic cliaracter of the 

 rock was identical with that of Fiji. Mr. Mayer collected upon the top 

 of the second terrace a number of fossils similar in all respects to those 

 we found in the Fiji elevated coralliferous limestones. 



The southwestern extremity of the island slopes gradually to the sea 

 and shows two well-defined terraces. The lines of these two terraces 

 could, as a rule, be traced along the faces of the vertical clifls by the 

 presence of caverns along the lines of those levels, similar to the lines of 



' Corals and Coral Islands, 3d ed., 1890, p. 193. 



