PONAPI. 349 



According to the tradition of the natives, the prevaihng winds affect 

 the position of the islands on the outer edge of the barrier reef. They 

 seem to be eaten away on the east side, and during the hist eighty or 

 one hundred years to have been building up on the western face. 



The amount of water which comes down the slopes of Ponapi during 

 the rainy season is enormous ; the extent of denudation and disintegra- 

 tion it effects is considerable, as can be seen from the formation of the 

 deep trough-like river valleys of that face of Ponapi. The channel of the 

 river which empties into Kiti Harbor is filled with bai's of pebbles and 

 of gravel. The volcanic rock of which Kusaie and Ponapi are composed 

 is readily disintegrated and decomposed into a fertile soil, or washed 

 away as silt and deposited immediately off shore and in the deeper parts 

 of the eastern and western barrier reef lagoon flanking the island of Ponapi. 



The fauna of Ponapi is quite different from that of the islands more 

 to the east. Fruit bats are found here, as well as paroquets, pigeons, 

 babblers, flycatchers, swifts, king-fishers, three species of lizards, and two 

 of bats. The vegetation is also different from that of the low coral 

 islands of the Marshall, Gilbert, and Ellice groups, although the vegetation 

 of the former is already in striking contrast to that of such islands as 

 the Paumotus, where the rainy season is not so continuous as it is further 

 to the westward. The vegetation of the Carolines, as far east as at Kusaie, 

 is almost continental, resembling somewhat that of the Malayan district 

 to the west. The variety of forest trees found on the slopes of Ponapi is 

 very striking ; they run down to tlie inner channel in the mangrove belt, 

 along the shore of Ponapi. It is interesting to compare the list of the 

 magnificent forest trees occurring on the Carolines, as given by Christian,^ 

 with the list of the scanty vegetation characteristic of the Paumotus found 

 in Dana's "Coral Islands,"^ or the more recent list of the similar flora of 

 Caroline Island given by Professor Trelease in his Report on the Botany 

 of the American - Eclipse " Expedition to Caroline Island.^ 



1 The Caroline Islands, by F. W. Christian, 1899, p. 328. 



2 Corals and Coral Islands, 3d ed.. 1890, p. 326. 



' Mem. Xational Acad. .Science, 1884, Vol. II., p. 88. 



