18 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



deep dive, but which is now barely knee deep. Mr. O'Brien, the 

 resident trader, told me that within his recollection this place 

 had become much shallower. A similar spot in the lagoon of 

 Nukulailai was shown to me by Mr. Collins, the local trader, 

 who had remarked that it had shoaled visibly during his residence 

 on the atoll. 



North and south of Funafuti islet are shallow passages* a few 

 hundred yards in width, interruptions in the thread of land 

 which encloses the lagoon but not in the reef rim upon which the 

 islets stand. At low water these are nearly dry, to windward the 

 surf breaks upon the outer edge of the reef, which continues from 

 islet to islet without reference to the passage, and to which my 

 previous description of low mounds, crevasses, and inner platform 

 applies. Within these the passage offers a broad, almost level 

 floor of shingle and rolled blocks. This area is nearly destitute 

 of life, the great rush of water sweeping all before it and the 

 unstable floor giving little holdfast. A few of the hardiest 

 Gasteropods and odd scraps of living coral contrive however to 

 withstand these adversities. Coming to the lagoon shore the 

 passage floor is seen to extend into it in a fan, identical in shape 

 and structure with the fan a mountain torrent spreads on entering 

 a lake. Below and beyond the steep delta slope a coral garden 

 stocked with fish, shells, sea anemones, and many other pretty 

 things, flourishes exceedingly. A collector remembers with what 

 cupidity he, floating over them in a canoe, gazed at treasures so 

 near in the clear water and yet so far from sketch book or micro- 

 scope. As well as I could ascertain the water, driven by the 

 surf, pours from without to within across the passage, during 

 ebb tide as well as flood. Whether or not these passages are 

 growing into islets there was nothing to show, if so the shingle 

 floor might represent the breccia in course of formation ; but 

 certainly the filling in of the lagoon proceeds at the passage 

 delta. 



SUMMARY OP PRECEDING GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



1. An elevation of Funafuti by at -least four feet is proved by 

 dead sub-fossil reef-corals in the position of life near high water 

 mark. 



2. Darwin's theory of coral reefs as opposed to Murray's is 

 favoured by these facts : Firstly, soundings show the atoll to be 

 planted not on a bank but on a cone ; secondly, they also show 

 it girdled by a precipitous submarine cliff, explicable only on the 

 subsidence theory ; thirdly, our observations and the experience 

 of residents agree that the lagoon is filling up, whereas Murray 

 demands its excavation. 



* These " passages " are not to be confounded with the deep and 

 navigable channels through which warships may enter the lagoon. 



