198 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 



thirty to thirty-five degrees ; then horizontal for eighty to two 

 hundred, after which another rise of three or four feet. It 

 consists of pebbles and fine sand, but above of slabs and 

 blocks of coral rock and of the. beach sand-rock, those of the lat- 

 ter nearly rectangular and flat. This beach sand-rock occurs 

 in layers from ten to twenty inches thick along the shore, and 

 is inclined from five to seven degrees seaward. Some portions 

 are very compact, and ring under the hammer, while others 

 enclose fragments of different sizes to a foot or more in diam- 

 eter. Large trunks of transported trees lay upon the island, 

 one of which was forty feet long and four in diameter. The 

 shore platform was much intersected by channels. 



Captain Hudson obtained soundings half a mile off in two 

 hundred fathoms ; the lead struck upon a sandy bottom, but 

 was indented by coral. 



Honden or Henuahe, Paumotu Archipelago. — Size 3^ 

 miles by 2 miles. Oblong, five-sided ; trending west-north- 

 west. A small shallow lagoon, communicating with the sea 

 only at high tide, on the west side. There are two other 

 entrances which are seldom if ever covered with water, and 

 appeared merely as dry beds of coral rock. Height of the 

 island twelve feet : lowest on the south side. Belt of verdure 

 complete, and consisting of large forest trees, with the Panda- 

 nus and other species, but no cocoanuts ; its breadth half a 

 mile, and in some parts three-fourths. Among the trees large 

 masses of coral rock often exposed to view, and the surface in 

 many parts very rough. It seemed surprising at all these 

 islands that there should be so luxuriant a growth of trees and 

 shrubbery over so rocky a surface. Shores of the lagoon near- 

 ly flat. On one side there was a large area of extremely fine 

 coral sand and mud, which extended a long distance into the 

 lagoon. Elsewhere about the centre of the island, the reef- 



