GENERAL ACCOUNT HEDLEY. 9 



The nearest high land is the small island of Rotumah, two 

 hundred and sixty miles to the south-west ; but the nearest land 

 of any considerable size is Vanua Levu, four hundred and fifty 

 miles south. 



On nearing Funafuti, as with any South Sea atoll, a long low 

 line of vegetation on the horizon gives the first intimation of the 

 approach to land. Looming larger, the tallest palm trees show 

 their plumed heads sharp against the sky. Nearer, if to wind- 

 ward, the dense vegetation is framed by a long white line of ever 

 breaking surf ; to leeward, a beach of sand, dazzling white in the 

 sunshine, limits the forest. Not till the observer has entered the 

 lagoon by one of the navigable channels does the atoll as a whole 

 extend before him. In this instance Dana's poetic comparison* of 

 an atoll to "a garland thrown upon the waters" is scarcely appli- 

 cable, so many and so wide are the rents in the wreath of foliage. 



PHYSICAL STRUCTURE AND GEOLOGY. 



The outline of Funafuti is that of a pear, the curved stem of 

 which is directed southwards. On the east or windward side the 

 outline is sketched in most firmly, the thread of reef and palm 

 being here almost continuous ; but on the leeward side so many 

 and so wide are the gaps that the interspaces of surf far exceed 

 those dots where the atoll rim emerges as dry land. The lagoon, 

 a noble shest of water about ten miles long and eight broad, thus 

 bounded, is plentifully besprinkled with shoals, many of which 

 rise to the surface and " break." Its maximum depth is thirty 

 fathoms, the general level of the floor being about twenty, whence 

 it steeply rises to the beach. 



Beyond the atoll rim, I am informed by Captain Mervyn Field, 

 R.N., of H.M.S. " Penguin," that his exhaustive series of sound- 

 ings developed the interesting fact that Funafuti is not seated on 

 any common ridge, or connected with the other members of the 

 Ellice Group by any bank, but that it rises independently from the 

 abyssal floor of the Pacific. The same was demonstrated to be 

 the case with Nukulailai, and therefore the remainder of the 

 Archipelago will probably prove " a range of deep sea cones," 

 which Dana saidf would be so " interesting a discovery." From 

 the reef the atoll sloped steeply outwards to forty fathoms, whence 

 to a hundred and fifty fathoms an almost precipitous cliff sur- 

 rounded the island. Below this its lower slope, as was suggested 

 to me by Prof. Sollas, compared with the contour of Mount Etna. 

 The outlines of the atoll, as it appears on the surface, are repeated 

 with astonishing fidelity by the five hundred, thousand, and fifteen 

 hundred fathom levels. 



* Loc. cit., p. 167. 

 t Loc. cit., p. 372. 



