NAEEATIVE OF THE SECOND AND THIRD EXPEDITIONS. 43 



grapher, lent us (with the kind consent of the Hon. J. H. Young, Minister for Works) 

 several useful pieces of boring and dredging apparatus. 



We left Sydney in the " Taviuni " at 1 am. on June 3rd, 1897, arriving at Suva 

 on June 10th. The Hon. B. G. Coeney, M.D., at once came on board, and informed 

 us that through the kindness of Mr. E. W. Knox and Mr. Gbmmel Smith, of the 

 Colonial Sugar Company, he had been able to arrange for a large punt, belonging to 

 that Company, to come alongside the "Taviuni" for the purpose of "lightering" 

 our gear and storing it until the s.s. " Maori '"' was ready to take it on board. 

 This period of transhijjment was a very anxious one, as we had over 200 

 packages of gear and stores (including one 3-ton boiler and one l§-ton boiler) with 

 over 1400 feet of boring rods and over 2000 feet of lining pipes. Mr. Sweet and 

 Messrs. Woolnough and Poole rendered excellent service in connection with the 

 tallying of the gear and stores. 



The " Maori " did not sail until June 15th, and in the interval Dr. and Mrs. Coeney 

 made our stay at Suva enjoyable and interesting. We visited under Dr. Corney's 

 guidance the raised reef at Walu Bay, near Suva. The reef is about 45 feet in 

 thickness, having at its base a conglomeratic bank of coarse waterworn pebbles of 

 andesite, quartz-porphyry, and more rarely quartz- schist. The reef is capped by 

 about 50 feet of soapstone (the well-known tuffaceous foraminiferal rock of Fiji), and 

 rests on a similar formation. The base of this reef is approximately a little over 

 100 feet above sea-level. The Hon. A. M. T. Duncan had 73 tons of coal shipped 

 for us on the " Maori," which, with the 63 tons already landed for us at Funafuti by 

 s.s. " Archer," Avould raise Jour total coal supply available for the drill when Funafuti 

 was reached to 136 tons. 



The Hon. James Stuaet, C.M.G., and the Commissioner for Works and Water 

 Supply, Mr. John Bere,y, also rendered us kind services. Nothing, indeed, could 

 have exceeded the kindness shown us by the Government as well as by personal 

 friends in Fiji. We left Suva early on June 15th, Dr. Cornby supplying us with a 

 large quantity of bamboos, which at the time seemed superfluous, but which afterwards 

 we were very thankful to have for rafting the boilers ashore and supplying poles for 

 carrying the gear across the island. 



We entered the circular reef of Weilagalala, and landed at the central island, 

 afterwards the scene of Professor Agassiz's bore, on June 16th. We left 

 the same day for Funafuti. The weather most of the way down was rainy and 

 rough. 



We arrived off Funafuti on Saturday, June 19th, sighting the atoll at 4 a.m. The 

 night was clear and the morning star shone brightly. Captain MacLean having 

 identified the white beacon on the south end of Funamanu, which m.arks the entrance 

 to the Bua Bua Passage, we steered for it and were soon inside the Funafuti Lagoon, 

 and with the help of the detailed chart kindly given me by Captain Field, E,.N., we 

 were able to steam right ahead to the main village, Fongafale, off which we anchored. 



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