MAEAKI. 257 



islets and ledges parallel to the southern and to the western coast of Maraki. 

 The two sides of the gap of the boat passage are flanked with coarse black 

 coral shingle, with here and there a patch of coral sand. Huge boulders 

 of Nullipores (PI. 147, fig. 2), thrown up at the base of the shingle beach, 

 supplied the material which, on further disintegration or grinding by the 

 sea, formed the sand beaches stretching between the beach rock conglom- 

 erate and the line of NuUipore boulders. 



We landed on the west coast, a little north of the monument, on a sand 

 beach (PI. 147, fig. 1), flanked on the left with masses of Nullipore 

 boulders (PI. 147, fig. 2). The underlying platform has evidently been 

 covered with such blocks from the sea face across to the la.goon, so that it 

 seems as if the land rim of the western coast had been built up, by the 

 gradual increment due to the piling up of this coarse material upon the 

 underlying platform, from the lagoon to the sea face. Making a section 

 across the atoll at this point, we find on the west face the gradually sloping 

 platform which once probably extended to the inner line of islands in the 

 lagoon. On that slope has been formed, by the action of the huge rollers 

 sweeping round the northern point of the atoll and following the western 

 coast, the mass of shingle, composed of Nullipore boulders and of coral rock 

 fragments (PI. 147, fig. 2), which extends inland perhaps as far as the lagoon 

 edge of the land rim. Next comes the reach of the sand beach, as far as 

 the first line of islets running parallel to the west coast along the lagoon 

 side of the atoll (PI. 150, fig. 2). This slope may even extend a consider- 

 able distance into the lagoon, and on it have been thrown up a second or a 

 third row of islets (PI. 149, fig. 2) ; they form the secondary lagoon we have 

 seen at different points, parallel to the southern, eastern, and western faces 

 of the island (Pis. 149, fig. 1; 150, fig. 1). From the eastern side of the 

 western land rim we could see that the eastern face of the lagoon rises to 

 about the same height as. that on the west (PI. 149, fig. 2). The slope of 

 the outer beach on the eastern sea face is very similar to that on the west, 

 only from the southern horn it runs into a wider outer reef platform 

 (PI. 146, fig. 2), similar to that we followed along the southern shore 

 (Pis. 148 ; 149, fig. 1 ; 150, fig. 1), while on the greater part- of the western 

 face this platform, as has been stated, has disappeared (PI. 147, fig. 2). 



