THE CAROLINE ISLANDS 
549 
Lele, remarkable for possessing ruins which appear to be 
very similar to those on Ponape, which we shall pre¬ 
sently describe. Captain Cyprian Bridge speaks of them 
’ as forming a sort of fortress with cyclopean walls of large 
basaltic blocks, and there are also numerous canals and 
presumably artificial harbours. 
Ponape, a rugged and mountainous island more or less 
circular in shape, and having a diameter of about 16 
miles, is thickly wooded, and some of its trees attain a 
very large size. It has a population of 2500 living on 
the seaboard, but the interior is quite uninhabited. A 
coral reef extends round the island at about three miles 
from the shore, with nine openings, forming a number of 
excellent harbours. The climate is excessively equable, 
the extreme range of the thermometer during three years 
being only 19°, the mean temperature being 80^°. The 
trade winds blow for the greater part of the year; violent 
storms, as well as electrical disturbances, are rare; and 
rain falls more or less all the year round. The celebrated 
Malayan fruit, the durian, has been introduced here with 
success, and the vegetable-ivory nut flourishes. The soil 
is very fertile, but its surface in many parts is so 
covered with stones as to be unworkable. These con¬ 
sist almost entirely of regular basaltic prisms, and in 
their abundance and evident suitability for building pur¬ 
poses we have possibly two reasons to account for the 
extraordinary ruins on the eastern side of the island 
which have puzzled so many travellers. 
The ruins of Metalanium are situated at the mouth of 
the port of that name, upon innumerable islets of the 
coral reef, distant about a mile or more from the main¬ 
land. They consist of one main building, which has a 
more or less central position in the midst of a vast 
number of other constructions whose raison d’Stre it is 
