3-t EXPEDITION OF THE "ALBATROSS," 1899-1900. f 



of the greater Vavau. They form tongues of land and sea and sonnds 

 of all shapes and sizes, showing the traces of the former land connec- 

 tions of the islands and islets, and their disintegration on the eastward 

 and southward by the action of the sea. The islands and islets to the 

 southward of the main island rise from more or less extensive reef flats 

 which stud the whole plateau, and on which corals grow in great profusion 

 (uiainly Millepora, Porites, Pavonia, Pocillopora. Fungia, and Astrea), to 

 a depth of five to six fiithoms in the sounds. In the Nomuka Group 

 they extended in the more open waters to fourteen and sixteen fathoms. 

 It is evident that in the Tonga Group, which is a very extensive area 

 of elevation, the recent corals have played no part in the formation of 

 the masses of land and of the plateau of the Tonga Ridge, and that 

 here again, as in the Society Islands and the Cook Islands, both also in 

 areas of elevation, they are a mere thin living shell or crust growing 

 at their characteristic depths upon platforms which in the one case are 

 volcanic, in the other calcareous, the formation of which has been 

 independent of their growth. 



After coaling and refitting we left Suva* on the IDtli of December, and 

 arrived at Funafuti on the 23d, stopping on the way at Nurakita, the 

 southernmost of the Ellice Islands. I was, of course, greatly interested 

 in my visit at Funafuti, where a boring had been made under the direc- 

 tion of a committee of the Royal Society, in charge of Professor David, of 

 Sydney, after the first attempt under Professor Sollas had failed. The 

 second boring reached a depth of more than 1100 feet. This is not 

 the place to discuss the bearing of the work done at Funafuti, as beyond 

 the fact of the depth reached we have as yet no final statement by the 

 committee of tlie interpretation put upon the detailed examination of 

 the core obtained, and now in the hands of Professor Judd and his assis- 

 tants. In addition to the above-named islands, we also examined Nuku- 

 fetau, another of the Ellice Group. 



I Explorations of the " Albatross " in the Pacific. IV. [Letter No. 4, on the Cruise of the " Alba- 

 tross," dated Yokohama, Japan, March 5, 1900, to Hon. George M. Rowers, U. S. Commissioner of 

 Fish and Fisheries, Washington, U. C, l>y Alexander Agassiz ] Am. Jour. Sci., Fourth Series, 

 Vol. IX., No. 63, May, 1900. 



