KEPOKT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 141 



sea face of Makemo is narrower than at Rairoa, and its outer edge is 

 extremely rugged, with gnarled tongues of nullipore-eovered rock 

 thrust seaward, leaving between them gullies in which the water wells 

 with the surf. In places where the end walls of the gullies are abrupt 

 the heavy swells, which roll almost unceasingly in this region of the 

 trades, dash vertically aloft in spouts sometimes 20 feet or more in 

 height. The nuUipores grow most luxuriantly in those parts of the reef 

 which are reached by the spray, and consequentl}^ the sea verge of the 

 reef is raised above the level of the flats behind, and around the 

 blowholes there is usually a partial rim, which slopes away like the 

 flanks of a crater. At Makemo and nearly all islands where the outer 

 edge of the reef has a nullipore ridge with a comparatively narrow 

 reef flat behind there is a channel about a foot in depth, through 

 which the water dashed over the rim flows in rather swift currents 

 parallel with the shore, until it finds a lateral channel permitting it 

 to flow back to the sea. In some places at Makemo, Fakarava, and 

 elsewhere this canal is incompletely eroded, and consists ot* a net- 

 work of small channels from 6 to 18 inches in depth, where the sand 

 and fragments of coral rock washed back and forth by the currents 

 show clearly the mechanical agents by which the scouring out of the 

 ledge rock has been effected. At Makemo there is also a narrow cut, 

 as yet but 2 to 4 feet deep, through which the tide rushes into the 

 lagoon at high water and which is doubtless a pass in embryo. A 

 contemplation of this and various other cuts in different stages of 

 formation was convincing that passages through the rims of atolls are, 

 at least sometimes, formed by erosion rather than by discontinuity in 

 the growth of corals. After the cut has once reached a depth where 

 the sea has access to it at or near low water the cutting away of the 

 rocks must proceed more rapidly, as swift currents are continually 

 discharging through the gaps on the lee side of the atolls the vast 

 quantities of water which the waves wash over the low rims of reef 

 on the weather side. In some of the passes of the Paumotus there is 

 a current of 7 or 8 knots flowing from the lagoon seaward which is 

 sometimes merely checked and not reversed, even at high water. 

 • Hikueru was visited principally for the purpose of examining the 

 pearl fishery in the lagoon, which has no entrance sufficiently deep to 

 float even a large boat, the small sloops and catboats used in the 

 fishery being dragged and carried over Ioav places in the reefs. The 

 lagoon is opened to fishing one year out of three, when the small resi- 

 dent population is augmented by a heavy influx from most of the 

 Paumotu Islands and some of the Society group — at the time of the 

 visit of the Albatross it being estimated that over 3,000 persons were 

 on the island. The fishery is carried on entirely by naked native 

 divers — men, women, and the larger children. The men frequently 

 go to a depth of 15 fathoms, staying under water from two to three 

 minutes, and the best divers are said to sometimes reach a depth of 

 20 fathoms. The members of the party saw a man bring up several 



