CORAL ISLANDS. "7 
as Mr. Hale was informed by a Scotch sailor by the name of Gray, 
taken from the island, there is a long trench or canal, described by 
him as several miles long, and two feet deep. They have taro planta- 
tions, which require a large supply of water, besides some breadfruit. 
These islands have been elevated a little, but are not over fifteen feet 
above the sea.* 
The only source of this water, is the rains, which, percolating 
through the loose surface, settle upon the hardened coral rock that 
forms the basis of the island. As the soil is white or nearly so, it 
receives heat but slowly, and there is consequently but little evapora- 
tion of the water that is once absorbed. 
These islands moreover enclose ports of great extent, many admitting 
even the largest class of vessels: and the same lagoons are the pearl 
fisheries of the Pacific. 
An occasional log drifts to their shores, and at some of the more 
isolated atolls, where the natives are ignorant of any land but the spot 
they inhabit, they are deemed direct gifts from a propitiated deity. 
These drift-logs were noticed by Kotzebue, at the Marshall Islands, 
and he remarked also that they often brought stones in their roots. 
Similar facts were observed by us at the ‘Tarawan Group, and also at 
Enderby’s Island and elsewhere. 
The stones at the Tarawan Islands, as far as we could learn, are 
generally basaltic, and they are highly valued for whetstones, pestles, 
and hatchets. The logs are claimed by the chiefs for canoes. Some 
of the logs on Enderby’s Island were forty feet long, and four in 
diameter. 
Fragments of pumice and resin are transported by the waves to the 
Tarawan Islands. We were informed that the pumice was gathered 
from the shores by the women, and pounded up to fertilize the soil of 
their taro patches; and it is so common that one woman will pick up 
a peck inaday. Pumice was also met with at Fakaafo. Volcanic 
* The Scotchman (Gray) from whom this information was obtained, added that ten 
ships of the line might water there, though the place was not reached without some diffi- 
culty. There were fish in the pond which had been put in while young. The bottom 
was adhesive like clay. He spoke of the taro as growing to a very large size, and as 
being in great abundance; it was planted along each side of the pond. 
Kotzebue observes, that “in the inner part of Otdia [one of the Marshall Islands], there 
is a lake of sweet water; and in Tabual, of the group Aur, a marshy ground exists. 
There is no want of fresh water in the larger islands; it rises in abundance in the pits 
dug for the purpose.”— Voyage, London, 1821, ili. 145. 
20 
