MAKATEA. 59 



The landing-places at Makatea and at Tikei show beautifully the little 

 inlets, finger-like cul-de-sacs, which the sea has cut or which have grown 

 out seaward from the edge of the reef platform. Into some of these 

 larger inlets boats can be run and a landing effected. Nine has perhaps 

 the best examples of these corrugations of the edge of the reef platform, 

 affording an excellent landing on the inner part of the reef platform. 



The reef fiat is covered with incrusting Nullipores, and these constitute 

 the greater mass of the rim. The width of the small channels cutting at 

 right angles into the reef platform varies greatly ; their sides are frequently 

 perpendicular, the depth from a few feet to two or three fathoms ; or the 

 sides may arch over, nearly bridging the channels in places ; the sea rushes 

 with considerable force into these gullies, which, according to their posi- 

 tion and size, form blow-holes where the sea or spray is thrown up with 

 considerable force. 



From the outer edge of the reef platform the slope to six or seven 

 fathoms was quite gradual, and beyond that somewhat steeper. Pocillipores 

 and scattered corals were common on the exposed rim of the shore platform, 

 crowded with Nullipores in the intervening spaces. Corals, mainly small 

 heads of Madrepores, Pavonia, and Porites, grew in great abundance on the 

 slope to eight fathoms ; there the corals began to decrease, both in size and 

 number, and although they extended often to 20 or even 22 fathoms, the 

 patches were separated by wider and wider lanes and patches of coral sand. 

 The reef flat or shore platform (Pis. 24, 25; 26, fig. 2) is a part of the 

 base of the first terrace, which has been planed down to below low-water 

 mark, and is deeply pitted and honeycombed. On the west face we collected, 

 from the first and second terraces, fossils similar in every respect to those 

 from Fiji, which have been determined by Mr. Dall and myself as tertiary. 

 We also collected many fossils on our way across the island, principally 

 in the deep cuts and caverns of the vertical cliffs on both faces of the 

 island. 



To the south of the village, on the east side (PI. 21, fig. 1), there are 

 four distinct lines of undercutting, and huge stalactites running from cavei^n 

 to cavern on the vertical faces of the cliffs. The lines of the caverns of the 

 second and third terraces are best marked in the cliffs to the north of the 



