314 "ALBATROSS" TROPICAL PACIFIC EXPEDITION. 



existing between these two islands, a bay once perhaps a wide and deep 

 gap connecting the sea with the lagoon. The widening of the lagoon 

 flats of the Marshall Islands by the transportation of the mass of material 

 exposed to the action of the trades differs somewhat from that due to the 

 action of the trades in closing the gaps between islands on the land rim 

 of atolls, either in the Paumotus or in the Fiji Islands. 



The line of islands and islets on the east face of the atoll are well plotted 

 on the chart (PI. 228, fig. 3); they form a succession of islets and islands 

 and sand bars, separated by gaps, sending out spits across the reef flats 

 on the lagoon side. The spits gradually project across the gaps, as we 

 have described it, forming first tongues of sand at right angles to the 

 shore line, then bays open to the sea or to the lagoon, and finally sinks, 

 closed up by high shingle beaches on the sea face. 



The rise of the tides in the Marshall Islands is from three to seven feet ; 

 as there are no hurricanes, the conditions under which the m/iss of material 

 deposited on the reef flats is moved is not subject to the cyclonic conditions 

 which occur in Fiji, or further east in the Paumotus. In the Marshall Islands, 

 as at Jaluit, where the beach is not more than five feet above high-water 

 mark, high seas have only occasionally forced their way across the island. 



The southeastern part of the lagoon, and as far as one can see, is 

 full of shoal patches and coral knolls. The deepest part is said to be 

 from twenty-five to thirty fathoms, though as a whole the average depth 

 of the lagoon varies from fifteen to twenty fathoms. We have not, in any 

 lagoon, found such a mass of floating sand as at Likieb. It was impossible 

 to make a haul of the tow nets anywhere without bringing up with them 

 a large amount of sand. 



Gap across Land Rim, Likieb. 



