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SECTION IV. 



NARRATIVE OF THE SECOND AND THIRD EXPEDITIONS. 



By Professor T. W. Edgeworth David, B.A., F.R.S. 



The Funafuti Expedition of 1 897 was the outcome chiefly of a sympathetic letter 

 from Professor Jtjdd, with regard to the faihu-e of the diamond-drill horing of 1896, 

 in which he expressed the hope that some attempt might still be made to retrieve 

 the failure. The Expedition of 1896, while successful in many ways, had broken 

 down in precisely that branch for which we, in New South Wales, had held ourselves 

 responsible, viz., tlie boring. We felt tliat it was due to Professor Sollas, and to 

 those associated with liim in the enterprise, to make good to them, if possible, that 

 which the 1896 Ex])edition lacked, viz., a core of coral rock from the surface to a depth 

 of 500 to 1000 feet. Without this obviously Darwin's wish to test the atoll question 

 by boring to tliis deptli could never be realised. 



It may here be stated that the diamond-drill apparatus sent in 1896 was the best 

 that the Colony could supply, and if the Finiafuti rock had possessed the hardness and 

 density of sandstone or granite or basalt, a depth of 500 to 1000 feet would probably 

 have been attained in tlie time availal)le. The apparatus, liowever, sent in 1896, 

 was not ca})able of Ijoriug througli alternating layers of hard cavernous coral rock 

 and disintegrated materials, but was specially adapted for boring a material of 

 sufficient compactness and strength to make it unnecessary to line tlie sides of the 

 borehole with iron pipes. Professor Sollas liad, indeed, supplied us with the report of 

 Sir Edward Belcher's attempt to bore the coi-al rock at Hao. The depth attained, 

 however, on that occasion was so insignificant that it gave us little information as 

 to the nature of reef rock at some de})tli under an atoll. The bores in reef rock at 

 Oahu in Sandwich Islands and at Key West, near Florida, were put down with 

 percussion drills, which rendered it difficult to ascertain the exact character of the 

 rock penetrated, though the general evidence was that the rock was fairly compact. 

 Our knowledge of raised reef limestone in the Pacific led us to the same conclusion. 

 This misapprehension of the true character of the reef rock to be encountered at 

 Funafuti, led to the apparatus sent in 1896 being defective in the following 

 respects: — (1) The supply of lining pijjes was insufficient; (2) no steel shoes to 

 screw on to the leading end of tlie lining pipes were sent ; (3) no under-reamers 

 constructed to project a strong stream of water from their under-surface were 



