>66 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by A. Nielen 



the tackle of the swamp fisher oe the south pacific 



Rattan is used in the making of these fish traps. They are five or more feet high and 

 are set in swamps, especially in New Guinea. The fisherman roasts his catch in a covering 

 of cane and bamboo. 



product of man's construction could be 

 more extravagant in conception than these 

 pinnacles, towers, bridges, flying but- 

 tresses, their shapes always suggesting 

 architectural fantasies upreared into the 

 air. There it stood, bare and bald as did 

 the earth on that day in Genesis when the 

 dry land first appeared. 



THE SEA-BIRDS BRING WEALTH 



Then came the sea-birds, millions and 

 millions of them, feeding on the abundant 

 sea-food, nesting in the coral, hatching 

 their young in ever-increasing multitudes, 

 and depositing the waste of their bodies 

 in the coral till the lower crevices were 

 filled and a gradually rising body of 

 guano attained at length a level with the 

 tops of the pinnacles, and then rose above 

 them and lay in a level plateau across the 

 island.* 



On the margin the rains, the winds, and 

 the breakers, spouting high against the 

 coral, washed away this deposit, so that 



*See, also, "Peru's Wealth-Producing Birds," 

 by R. E. Coker, in the National Geographic 

 Magazine for June, 1920. 



ramparts of bare pinnacles stood up and 

 still stand all around the island ; but the 

 coral walls back from the shore held safe 

 the treasure. Came another day (I am 

 aware that I am flinging days about as 

 casually as the author of Genesis). The 

 sea-birds were gone ; not a keen red eye 

 or swift-diving wing was left ; gone, im- 

 memorially gone. How or why is a 

 mystery. 



Then in the alembic of Nature a trans- 

 formation occurred. Guano is chiefly 

 phosphoric acid and nitrogen ; coral is 

 chiefly lime. Somehow, by the close con- 

 tact, the guano became changed into phos- 

 phate of lime, which is guano raised to 

 the nth power. It had now become a hard 

 rock, odorless and generally colorless, al- 

 though some specimens show fine, dark 

 stratification and take a high polish. 



Another day — perhaps the same day — 

 (it is startling to see how closely this 

 follows the Genesis story of creation) — 

 vegetation appeared, narrowly limited in 

 species, but abundant in specimens ; and 

 finally man, the brown people of the 

 South Sea. This must have been the 



