130 "ALBATROSS" TEOPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



sandy islet on the northwest side lies also at an angle to the reef flat ; it is 

 protected on the sea face by a shingle ledge. Between the islands of the 

 northwest side are gaps over which water passes into the lagoon even at 

 low tide ; these islands have steeper beaches than those more to the 

 westward, 



Anu-Anuraro. 



Plates 201, W3 ; WG. fig. 2. 



Anu-Anuraro is more angular in outline than the other islands of the 

 Gloucester group. Its greatest length is about two and a half miles. It is 

 fairly wooded on the eastern face, while its southwestern and northwestern 

 faces are bare, being merely a wide reef flat. There are three small wooded 

 islands on the atoll, one of which forms the westernmost point of Anu- 

 Anuraro (PI. 206, fig. 2). 



The sea face of the islands of Anu-Anuraro is characterized by its steep 

 high coral shingle beaches bordered at the base at intervals by long lines of 

 ledge rock. There is also a great development of sand dunes on parts of 

 the shingle beaches, where the shingle is completely covered by the inroads 

 of the sand blown over them from the base of the shingle beaches. On the 

 east face these sand beaches are often covered with grass and vegetation, 

 which reach far down towards the sea along the face of the beach. 



Along the outer edge of the reef flat at the southwest horn of the atoll 

 Nullipore knolls take a great development. The reef flat is in places more 

 than three quarters of a mile wide-, extending far into the lagoon, and being 

 half submerged in many places at all stages of the tide, allows large masses 

 of water to flow into the lagoon. The flat is covered by lines and bands of 

 boulders following in a general way the trend of the outer edge of the reef 

 flat as well as the beach. 



The vegetation of this atoll is low, rather scanty ; the Pandanus trees, as 

 well as the bushes of Scaevola, are small. 



On the western face of the atoll the old ledge crops out on the inner side 

 of the platform barrier reef channel, which is separated from the sea by a 

 wide reef flat, with sand bars and shingle bars and coral rubble bands 



