14 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



sea fountain be forced through the blow-hole by every wave. 

 Peering down into these coral crevasses, for a moment there is 

 shown an abyss as narrow, as green, and as deep as a cleft in 

 some vast alpine glacier, in perspective beyond perspective swim 

 a shoal of brilliant hued fishes, another instant and a rising 

 wave blots out the scene in a volume of spray and foam. Dana 

 remarks that " Among the scattered coral islands north of the 

 Samoan Group, the shore platform is seldom as extensive as at 

 the Paumotus. It rarely exceeds fifty yards in width, and is cut 

 up by passages often reaching almost to the beach. Enderby's 

 Island is one of the number to which this description applies. . . 

 As a key to the explanation of the peculiarities here observed, 

 it may be remarked that the tides in the Paumotus are two 

 to three feet, and about Enderby's Island five to six feet in 

 height."* 



Passing inland from the coast anywhere on the windward islets 

 a descent is gradually made on a surface of loose blocks, from a 

 yard in diameter downwards, of broken and decaying coral. The 

 weather has etched the upper faces deeply, and exhibits beautifully 

 the structure particularly of the astrean species. The hardest 

 kinds, as Montipora, Heliopora, and Millepora, had suffered little, 

 but softer species crumbled readily under the blows of a hammer. 

 Most of the surface of the eastern islets was of this inhospitable 

 description, and very cruel to a traveller's limbs and raiment was 

 it. Now and then among the loose, broken blocks, a ridge of 

 breccia running parallel to the islet's length could be detected. 

 Though of so barren an aspect, this country supports a vegetation 

 of Ngia, Ngashu, Fau, Fala, Boua, and palms, sufficiently dense 

 to everywhere shade the ground, Nowhere is this description of 

 country more than a foot or two above high water mark, and little 

 depressions commonly occur even in places remotest from the sea, 

 where, when high, the tide leaks in and spreads in shallow pools, 

 such are always densely enclosed by a thicket of Ngia and 

 Ngashu. 



Traverses across such places suggested to me that the low area 

 of decaying coral blocks represents a final stage of the high 

 shingle bank which faces the ocean ; the loss in height resulting 

 from decay and collapse natural to a loosely piled mass, such loss 

 being gradual on retreating from the beach as this hypothesis 

 demands. An accompanying transition in the state of decay 

 may be noted likewise, the blocks furthest from the sea being 

 most rotten. This explanation implies that the islet is growing 

 peripherally, and that seaward from the present embankment 

 another will in the future form. I am prepared to accept this 

 implication, and fortify the position by quoting an opinion in 

 support from that experienced and acute observer, the Rev. S. J. 



i*.,p. 186. 



