REPOKT OF COMMISSXUNEK OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 159 



and Ponape people, au effect which is heightened by the profuse appli- 

 cation of turmeric to their complexions. 



At Kusaie the houses which appear to represent most nearly the 

 native type are built of half-round sticks lashed horizontally to a 

 framework and are thatched with cocoanut leaves. Some of them are 

 elevated on platforms, provided with porches, and divided into rooms, 

 but there is reason to believe that all of these features, excepting 

 perhaps the first, are copied from the whites. At Moen Island in 

 the Truk group the houses are larger, with the ends open or closed by a 

 sort of shed leaning against the main structure. Several families, or 

 the married members of the same family, reside under the one roof, 

 a row of small compartments for their occupancy stretching along 

 each side of the house, leaving a broad central aisle, or hall, which is 

 used as a general living room, workshop, and storehouse. Canoes are 

 housed and sometimes built in the main hall, and the various house- 

 hold utensils and fishing appliances are stored there. 



The women of some of the Carolines — e. g., Kusaie and Truk — 

 weave a coarse cloth from the fibers of the banana, which is spun into 

 a thread by rolling several fibers together upon the naked thigh and 

 knotting the lengths into a continuous piece. In Kusaie the warp is 

 laid up on small ornamented benches with pins, and at Truk the 

 same purpose is attained by laying the thread around pins driven into 

 the ground in proper relationships of distance and position. The hand 

 looms are of simple tj^pe, alike at the two islands mentioned, but much 

 larger at Truk. The cloth is still extensively used for clothing at 

 Truk, but not so much at Kusaie. 



The people of Kusaie and Ponape are mild, peaceable, and friendly, 

 but those at Truk still engage in tribal wars and are said to be warlike 

 and treacherous, a reputation which the members of the expedition 

 believe to be justified. They still fight with spears, but many of them 

 are provided with good firearms. 



Six soundings were made, one near Namu Island, where 525 fathoms 

 was found ; another about three-quarters of a mile south of Port Lotton, 

 Kusaie, where the depth was 371 fathoms, and four others at places 

 removed from insular influence, which show apparently that the islands 

 of the archipelago rise rather abruptly from a depth of upward of 2,000 

 fathoms, the extremes being 2,162 and 2,533 fathoms. After leav- 

 ing the Carolines the soundings gradually deepened until, in latitude 

 12° 51' N. , longitude 145° 46' E. , about 100 miles southeast of Guam, 4,813 

 fathoms was found, but in latitude 13° 08' N., longitude 145° 25' E., 

 approaching the Ladrones, the depth had decreased to 2,337. A few 

 months before, as was learned at Guam, the U. S. S. Nero, while sound- 

 ing out a cable route, had found over 5,000 fathoms somewhere near the 

 same place, and the Challenger, during her famous cruise around the 

 world, made a sounding of 4,475 fathoms farther to the westward, but 

 evidently in the same basin, which is established as one of the deepest 

 holes in the w^orld, almost equaling in depth the great Tonga Deep. 



