THE CAROLINE ISLANDS 227 



the part}' who will direct special lines of investigation include 

 Henry Gannett, Chief Geographer of the U. S. Geological Survey ; 

 Dr Win. H. Dall, U. S. National Museum; Chas. A. Keeler, 

 Director of Museum of California Academy of Sciences; Prof. 

 B. E. Fernow, Cornell University ; D. G. Elliot, Field Columbian 

 Museum, Chicago; Prof. Wm. H. Brewer and Prof. W. R. Coe, 

 Yale University ; Robert Ridgway, Curator of Birds, National 

 Museum, and John Muir. the authority on glaciers. Edward S. 

 Curtis, of Seattle, the photographer of several expeditions to 

 Alaska; Louis A. Fuertes and R. Swain Gifford, artists; W. D. 

 Devereux, of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, mining engineer ; 

 John Burroughs, the popular writer on birds; Dr Lewis R. Morris, 

 physician and sportsman ; Dr George Bird Grinnell, editor of 

 Forest and Stream, and Capt. Luther S. Kelly, the well known 

 scout, also accompany Mr Harriman. G. H. G. 



THE CAROLINE ISLANDS 



In the April number of The Scottish Geographical Magazine 

 Mr F. W. Christian gives a valuable and timely description of 

 the Caroline islands. Their total population is about 50,000, a 

 combination of the Black, Brown, and Yellow races, and is 

 scattered over a chain of islands extending for some 1,000 miles 

 east and west. The massive ruins existing on Yap and Ponape 

 indicate that the islanders formerly possessed a high degree of 

 civilization. On Yap, toward the west end of the group, there are 

 embankments and terraces, solid roads neatly paved with regular 

 stone blocks, ancient stone platforms and graves, and enormous 

 council lodges of quaint design, with high gables and lofty, carved 

 pillars. On Ponape, at the east end of the group, are still more 

 remarkable remains of a former civilization. Here are dis- 

 tinctly seen the ruins of an island city, a Micronesian Venice. 

 The ruins consist of sixty walled islets of rectangular form, 

 built up in the waters of a shallow lagoon, while an immense, 

 double breakwater, three miles in length, shuts out the deep 

 waters of the outer lagoon. The walls, islets, and great break- 

 water are built of massive blocks of black basalt, upon which 

 no marks of iron tools are to be found. 



