THE HAAPAI GROUP. 195 



The Haapai Group. * 



Plates 217, 218. 



As we left our anchorage at Nomuka, we could, going north, see the 

 summit of Mata Maka, sloping to the shore line where limestone bluffs alter- 

 nate with long reaches of coral sand beaches, fringed with beach rock. To 

 the south rose Koto Maka, similarly flanked with low bluffs of old beach 

 rock alternating with coral sand beaches. Immediately above the cliffs, 

 the slopes were covered by thick vegetation, probably up to the height 

 of the third terrace ; above that the higher summits of Nomuka were 

 more or less bare (PI. 216). We could see in the distance, to the north- 

 east of Nomuka, the flat-topped Oua composed of limestone (140 feet high) 

 covered with scrub vegetation, as well as the more rounded summit of 

 Fonuaika, covered with cocoanut trees. We passed by Kito Island, a low 

 sand beach covered with scrub bushes (PI. 217). Tongua and Kotu re- 

 semble Oua, their limestone cliffs rising to a height of more than 120 

 feet. Off Kotu there is a sink in the reefs surrounding it, forming an 

 incipient atoll which has not risen to the surface from the surrounding 

 bank, on which is a depth of twenty to thirty fathoms. The island of 

 Fotuhaa is also flanked with old elevated reef rock ; its second, thii'd, and 

 fourth terraces are plainly visible when steaming past at a distance of about 

 three miles. The first, alow terrace, flanks the whole of the west coast; 

 in the third terrace a number of caverns indicate a former sea-level, at a 

 height of probably thirty to forty feet above high-water mark. The cliffs of 

 Fotuhaa are deeply undercut to the base of the third terrace, and gouged 

 vertically into incipient valleys at right angles to the shore line, as we saw 

 them at Nuie. 



The islands of elevated coralliferous limestone which dot the western 

 part of the southern portion of the Haapai Bank are the outliers of larger 

 islands; their former extent is indicated by the extensive reef flats and 

 patches occupying the greater part of the area of the Haapai Plateau, 

 by the reef flats to the east of Oua, those surrounding Haafeva and Kotu 

 (PI. 217), Alexander and Wickham reefs, and many others scattered over 

 the surface of the Haapai Plateau. 



