272 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 113. 



entific director. Pretty full accounts of the 

 expedition, its objects, methods, and results, 

 have already been published in Science, vol. i., 

 at pp. 299 and 594, and vol. ii. p. 237. 



Some idea of the magnitude of the under- 

 taking ma}' be gained when it is known, that, 

 in addition to the elaborate home preparations 

 of the instruments and apparatus for special- 

 ized investigations, the observers were absent 

 from the United States more than three months, 

 during the most of which they were travelling 

 (some fifteen thousand miles, in all), and that 

 ten fall weeks were passed at sea. 



They were expected to take up their abode 



wisely devoted themselves to the study of the 

 island in every particular ; and their researches, 

 although secondary to the main purpose of the 

 expedition, have quite as much of interest as, 

 if the}' are not of equal importance with, the 

 results pertaining purely to the eclipse. First, 

 Professor Holden gives us the history of the 

 island ; from which we learn that it was first 

 seen in 1795, that it was once known as Thorn- 

 ton Island, and that in 1868 Capt. Nares, R.N., 

 took possession of it for the British. Ten 

 years later guano was exported from the island, 

 — an item of interest when connected with the 

 fact, that, in seeking for the deposits, the for- 



1HB BEACH OF THE LAGOON AT CAROLINE ISLAND. 



somewhere on a small group of islands, about 

 which nothing of importance could be ascer- 

 tained beforehand, save the bare fact of their 

 existence at a known spot in mid-ocean. The 

 whole undertaking, however, was accomplished 

 without a mishap of any kind occurring to in- 

 terfere with the success of the work. 



On the morning of the eclipse there were 

 three rain-showers, and several persistent 

 banks of clouds. The critical moments of 

 totality, however, were passed with an un- 

 clouded sky ; and the observations of the par- 

 ties were successful, owing to the apparent 

 accident of the dissipation of a local cloud. 



So little was known of Caroline Island, that 

 Professor Holden and the members of his party 



mer owners of the island came upon native 

 marais, or burial-places, numbering altogether 

 fifty, in which they found stone axes and relics 

 of various sorts. 



The island, as it was in 1883, is well described 

 by Professor Holden and Lieut. Qualtrough, 

 the former quoting from Dana's ' Coral and 

 coral islands/ and Darwin's ' Voyage of the 

 Beagle,' their accounts of typical coral atolls. 

 By supplementing these descriptions with the 

 statement that Caroline Island is in general a 

 pear-shaped ring of islets encircling a lagoon, 

 the characteristic features of the islands be- 

 come perfectly understood. A few facts from 

 Lieut. Qualtrough' s paper will be of interest : 

 that there are, in all, twenty-five islets, well 



