Wirtz , W. March 
1965 ATF 
98 
The animals was not breeding. 
* 
23 March 1963 
«*.ro 5 t 
We aeopn before 0700 this morning and set out in different 
directions to examine this island. This is the most desolate place I hare 
«e 
ever seen. The island is a pan cake, one by 6/8 of a mile in dimensions. 
It is about 30 feet above sea level at the northwest lending beach, the 
highest point on the island, and elsewhere it is 10-15 feet above the water 
The vegetation 19 very sparse, a great deal of it being dead. There is 
some of the coarse grass like we found on Howlsnd, and the creeping vine, 
but no puncture weed. There is a different creeping vine only on the 
beaches, and it is quite green. There are large patches of dead trees. 
But with the excepting of the grass, most herbaceous plants are prostrate. 
Only this northwest beach near the lighthouse is sand to the 
water's edge. All of the other beaches are large rock ledges which are 
completely exposed at low water and project in places at high water. 
The surf is extremely rough^ oVer all of these areas, and begins to 
form several hundred yards off shore coming in series of 5 to 10 foot waves 
There is a rock ledge under the landing beach too, but it is still under 
a foot or two of water at low ti||e. 
There is a solid, rotund lighthouse on the northwest beach. About 
100 yards fcorth of it is a military grave yard from World War II, vdth 
most of the 80 to 100 gr-ves marked only by a plank driven into the ground. 
About 100 yards south of the lighthouse is the remains of an old-town, 
with buildings of native stone crumbled to the ground, and another old 
I 
iron cannon pointed ou? to sea. Just pqet this is a very old grave yard; 
the only readable stone says 1879. The rest of the slabs are native rock. 
