282 "ALBATHOSS" TROPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



into the lagoon, we turned sharply to the south, and anchored opposite 

 the principal village of Jaluit, near the northern extremity of the island 

 (PI. 228, fig. 2). The high and steep beach flanking the eastern sea face 

 of Jaluit Island is made up of large flat blocks of coral rock, many of 

 which were extremely hard, and masses or fragments of corals and coral 

 beach rock of all sizes, washed up on the outer slope of the island. Near 

 the northern extremity of Jaluit Island the outer sea face slope is steep, 

 while the inner slope from the summit of the outer beach to the edge of 

 the lagoon is very gradual ; the lagoon beach is scarcely more than one or 

 two feet above high-water mark. The slope which extends from the base 

 of the shingle beach towards the Nullipore knolls and the masses of 

 Pocillipores (PL 164, fig. 2), which form the outer edge of the reef platform, 

 is very gradual (Pis. 164, 165). Judging from the many outliers left on 

 the reef flats (PI. 165, fig. 2), an extensive flat of beach rock conglomerate 

 must once have extended from the base of the shingle beach to the outer 

 edge of the reef platform, from two to three feet higher than its present 

 level. This rocky flat, however, is no longer continuous; it has been planed 

 off and gouged into buttresses at right angles to the trend of the outer 

 shingle beach, forming spurs which extend sometimes fifty to sixty feet 

 towards the outer edge of the reef platform (Pis. 164, fig. 2 ; 165). The 

 space between the extremity of those spurs and the outer edge of the plat- 

 form has been planed off by the sea, and is covered by needles or mounds 

 and spires of beach rock and coral conglomerate denuded and eroded into 

 all kinds of fantastic shapes (PL 167, fig. 2). 



The knolls on the outer edge rise from two to three and sometimes 

 four feet above the general level of the outer reef flat (PL 164). They 

 are as usual composed of Nullipores and of masses of Pocillipores ; the 

 edge is indented and cut into numerous digitiform lobes. The outer 

 beach is about seven feet in vertical height ; the boulders and fragments 

 of coral and of beach rock conglomerate on the uppermost part of the 

 slope are generally pitted and honeycombed. On the lagoon side the 

 slope is more gentle ; it is covered by a mass of coral fragments thrown 

 over the summit of the shingle beach by the action of the sea ; this mass 

 gradually passes into a finer body of coarse coral sand, till we strike the 



