240 "ALBATROSS" TEOPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



to the junction of sand bars, separated by a low islet, extending diagonally 

 over the face of the inner fringing reef flat of the lagoon ; they have 

 surrounded, in this way, a part of the reef flat, and separated it from 

 the rest of the lagoon It is easy to see how a series of chains of such 

 secondary lagoons may thus be formed similar to those we observed in some 

 of the Paumotu Islands ; there their mode of structure is not as evident as 

 it is in this particular instance. The sea face coast of the northernmost 

 island on the eastern side of Tapeteuea consists of a long stretch of fine coral 

 sand, with a few buttresses of the old ledge, with here and there an isolated, 

 short, low coral shingle beach, flanked by wide reef flats (PI. 138, fig. 3). 



Apamama. 



Plates 138, fig. i ; 139, figs. 1-3 ; 2S3 ; 226, fig. 2. ■ 



■ The next island of the Gilbert group we visited was Apamama, neither 

 Nonuti, nor Aranuka, nor Kuria seeming from the chart to present specially 

 interesting features. 



Apamama is irregular in outline (PI. 226, fig. 2),' about twelve miles in 

 its greatest length and about seven miles in width at the northwestern 

 extremity. The eastern coast of the atoll is convex, forming a sharp point at 

 the southern extremity. The entrances to Apamama are on the northwest 

 and southwest faces ; the lagoon is said to be shallow, varying from two and a 

 half to seven fathoms in depth. We examined a part of the southern and 

 eastern side of the atoll. 



The charts of Apamama^ are not very accurate. The northwesterly 

 shank of the southern land rim is much longer than represented ; there 

 are many bays along the eastern face of Kabaiiaki, and from Tebaiia to 

 Tabonua many gaps and cuts subdivide that part of the land rim as well 

 as its southern face. 



From the northern horn of Apamama we skirted the eastern side of the 

 atoll; this is flanked by a wide reef flat; a shallow, reef flat lagoon is 

 formed between the outer edge of the reef platform and the base of the sand 

 beach of the land rim. Along the east shore reef platform lagoons are also 



1 A. Chart 731. ^ Ibid. H. 0. Chart 122. 



