296 "ALBATROSS" TROPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



like the western face of Jaluit, flanked by a reef more or less exposed at 

 low tide, while the eastern and the southeastern faces of the atoll are 

 flanked by a narrow land rim, differing in no respect from those of 

 Jaluit or of Ailinglap. 



We approached Namu on the east face so that we could look up the 

 weather side for a considerable distance. We skirted along a part of 

 the southwest shore of the atoll ; there the islands of the land rim are 

 covered with a remarkably fine growth of Pandanus, of Pouka, of Pisonias, 

 of other hardwood trees and low bushes (PI. 167, fig. 1). On the east 

 face we could see numerous gaps separating the islands and islets, through 

 many of which the .sea was breaking with considerable violence. On the 

 southeast shore the shingle beaches are flanked with large boulders, with 

 only here and there a small sand beach. It happened to be high water 

 as we steamed by Xamu, but we could see at the passes the outer shingle 

 beach and on the lagoon side the tine coral sand beaches; we also noticed 

 on the reef flat the sand bars and islands and islets thrown up by the sea 

 on the lagoon side. The sand spits and sand bars gradually become 

 covered with vegetation ; they often form two or three successive lines 

 of elongated islands and islets barring the gaps. These sand bars and 

 islets eventually become connected by spits with the outer islands, and 

 gradually form islands of greater width than those now existing on the 

 outer land rim 



Kwaj along. 



Plates 169, 170, 225 ; 227, fig. 2. 



It will be noticed from the dimensions given of some of the Marshall 

 Islands that with few exceptions they are among the largest atolls known ; 

 they equal and even surpass the largest of the atolls in the Paumotus and 

 Maldives. 



Kwajalong, or Menschikov, the next atoll we visited, is more than seventy 

 miles in length.' The centre of the western coast is convex to the east. 



' Menschikov and SuvaciiTa, one of the Maldives, are the largest atolls known ; Kwajalong is no 

 less than seventy-five miles in length, and with the exception of one or two of the Paumotus none of 

 the atolls of the Pacific are to be compared with them in size. 



