256 James D. Dana, Esq., on 



twenty feet. It has a shallow lagoon, into which there are 

 two entrances ; some hummocks of coral-reef rock stand 

 eight feet out of the water. 



Namuka and most of the Ilapaii cluster, are stated by 

 Cook to have abrupt limestone shores, ten to twenty feet in 

 height. Namuka has a lagoon or salt lake at centre, one and 

 a half-mile broad ; and there is a coral rock in one part 

 twenty-five feet high.* 



Vavau, the northernmost of the group, according to Wil- 

 liams, is a cluster of elevated islands of coral limestone, 

 thirty to one hundred feet in height, having precipitous cliffs, 

 with many excavations along the coast, t 



PylstaarVs Island, south of Tongatabu, is a small rocky 

 islet without coral. Tafua and Proby are volcanic cones, 

 and the former is still active. 



Savage Island, a little to the east of the Tonga Group, re- 

 sembles Vavau in its coral constitution and cavernous cliffs. 

 It is elevated one hundred feet.% 



Beveridge Reef, a hundred miles south-east of Savage, is 

 low coral. 



/. Samoan Islands. — No satisfactory evidences of eleva- 

 tion were detected about these islands. 



g. Scattered islands north of Samoa. 



These islands are all of coral, and several indicate an 

 elevation of one to six feet. On account of the high tides 

 (4 to 6 feet), the sea may give a height of ten or twelve feet 

 to the land. 



Swain's, near latitude 11° S., is fifteen to eighteen feet 

 above the sea, where highest, and the beach is ten to twelve 

 feet high. It is a small island, with a depression at centre, 

 but no lagoon. The height proves an elevation of three to 

 sioo feet. 



Fahaafo, ninety miles to the north, is fifteen feet high. 

 The coral-reef rock is raised in some places three feet above 

 the present level of the platform. Elevation at least three 

 feet. 



* Cook's Voyage ; Williams, p. 296. t Williams, p. 427. 



\ Williams, pp. 275, 276. Foster estimates the height at fifty feet, and 

 speaks of a depression about the centre. 



