TAKUME. 93 



On the west side the reef flat shows but little tendency to dishing ; it has 

 a more uniform slope from the base of the shingle beach to the outer 

 raised edge of the reef platform. 



At some points the old ledge must be at some distance below the sea 

 level, judging from the size of the beach rock and recent conglomerate 

 boulders which have been thrown upon the outer reef flat. 



On the east face there are but three wooded islands, and a number of 

 rocky islets and sand bars (PI. 57, figs. 1, 4), all placed on the lagoon side of 

 the outer flat, which is fully 2000 feet wide, and is more or less dished and 

 gouged out into long canals and pot-holes. Numerous boulders consisting 

 of beach rock and recent conglomerate, as well as old ledge, crop out in all 

 directions upon this flat ; they are weathered into all possible shapes and 

 sizes, from a large boulder to the smaller fragments which supply the 

 material for the shingle beaches and bars. On the more open part of the 

 east face the reef flat becomes narrow, especially near the central part of 

 the island, where it is not more than 200 to 300 feet. 



On the island and islets of the east side of the atoll cocoanut trees, often 

 single, are growing at all points where land is making. Young cocoanut 

 trees have here, as elsewhere in other lagoons, evidently been transported 

 by the sea on the smaller sand islets ; they have not been planted. 



On the outer edge of the reef flat there is the same raised edge of knolls 

 of Nullipores growing at the extremity and between the narrow and deep 

 cuts which encroach upon the outer edge of the reef flats. Many of these 

 large knobs seem ready to be torn off by the next high sea, to be then 

 thrown among the rocks and boulders and horse-heads studding the outer 

 reef flat. 



Many of the islands and islets are, as at Anaa, quite a distance from the 

 outer edge of the reef flat, well on the inner lagoon face of the flat. 



The lagoon is comparatively shallow, not more, on the average, than 

 from five to six fathoms. 



As we left Takume, this shallow lagoon also showed us the same reflection 

 in the clouds which we had noticed on approaching Anaa, and other large 

 atolls with shallow lagoons and with wide reef flats. 



On the reef flat of the east face the old ledge forms the underlying 



