266 



ALBATROSS" TROPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



tions, bands of the same shingle beach and masses of conglomerate rock 

 which characterize the outer beach. As the inner island was not exposed 

 to as violent an action of the sea as is the present outer face of the reef 

 flat, the boulders thrown up to constitute the line of islands forming the 

 land rim of Taritari are much smaller than the huge blocks thrown up by 

 the rollers on the very edge of the outer reef. The fine coral sand beach 

 on the lagoon side of the land rim is formed from the dead tops of Mille- 

 pores, and from fragments of Nullipores, broken up and ground into fine 

 coral sand by the action of the waves of the lagoon itself. The secondary 



Kkuka \'ii,la<;k. Takitaki. 



lagoon flanking the eastern face of the land rim is, in some places, entirely 

 shut off from the main lagoon by dams connecting the islets formed on 

 the outer edge of Taritari (Pis. 157, fig. 2 ; 158, fig. 1), while at other 

 points extensive gaps still exist, as between this islet and the main island, 

 where the village of Keuea is situated, forming a shallow reef flat upon 

 which numerous islets are thrown up by the waves of the lagoon, forming 

 spits at right angles to the great dam of the outer edge of the reef flat. 

 Between these islands and islets are passes connecting different parts of 

 the main lagoon ; elsewhere the outer dam only protects a deep bay, bare 

 at low water, in which numerous islands and islets exist formed by the 

 action of the waves of the lagoon. 



