1S87.] COLLECTION FROM CHRISTMAS ISLAND. 509 



The shore cliffs are almost continuous, making the island inacces- 

 sible except at a few places. These cliffs are split by deep fissures, 

 extending several feet below water ; where these have become enlarged 

 and the adjacent cliffs have fallen in, a small white beach of frag- 

 mentary rock is thrown up, and at such places on the lee side 

 landing can be effected. 



From the blown direction of the trees on the south side, and from 

 the weather-worn aspect of rocks exposed to the southward, it is 

 manifest that the south-eastern is by far the most prevailing wind. 



The north side of the island forms a large bight in which the water 

 is quite smooth, so that a boat can go close up to the cliffs, but on 

 the southern and eastern sides a heavy sea dashes against the rocks. 



The ' Flying-Fish' steamed close round the island looking for 

 anchorage, but found none except in a small cove two miles to the 

 westward of the north point of the island ; this has been named 

 * Flying-Fish ' cove ; here she anchored in 22 fathoms, with her 

 stern secured by hawser to the trees to prevent her slipping off the 

 bank. 



The hill rises nearly perpendicularly at the head of the cove iu 

 the form of a horseshoe, and slopes gradually down to the two arms 

 forming the cove. The bare beach is not more than 20 yards wide, 

 and from the look of the fragments that compose it must be thrown 

 up in northerly gales ; the upper part of the beach to the foot of tlie 

 hill, a distance of some hundred yards, is of just the same material, 

 viz. fragments of coral-rock and coral-limestone, but it has a covering 

 of mould from fallen leaves, and is thickly wooded, many of the trees 

 on it being forest trees of 12 feet girth and 300 feet high, apparently 

 hundreds of years of age, showing that a very long time must have 

 elapsed since tliat beach was raised from the water. 



One very large tree had something like the letters WW cut inside 

 a scroll, and nearly illegible from time ; this was the only sign of the 

 island having been visited before. One of our officers heard at 

 Batavia that a Dutch vessel was wrecked on the south-east point of 

 the island in a calm about fifteen years ago, and that the crew escaped 

 and lived many mouths on the island before they were taken off, 

 but I have no other details about the affair. 



No running water was seen, but the droppings from the leaves 

 during rain and dew must be great, as holes in the rocks and cup- 

 shaped leaves were filled with water. As it was raining over some 

 part of the island (generally the western) during a great part of the 

 time the ' Flying-Fish ' was in the neighbourhood, and clouds were 

 continually being formed over the island from the moist air driven 

 up the side by the south-east wind, a great deal of water must be de- 

 posited, and probably be absorbed by the soil. At the eastern end of 

 the cove among the trees, where had seemed at first the most likely 

 plac e for a water-course, a few volcanic stones were found ; but every- 

 where else the only rock seen was coral-Hmestoue, the cliffs above, 

 from which detached pieces had fallen to the beach, were the same ; 

 the soil under the trees was a rich moist mould, apparently formed 

 from decaying vegetation. 



Proc. Zool. Soc.-1887, No. XXXIV. 34 



