Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

282 AUSTRALASIA.of its islands ;others were seen hj Legaspi, conqueror of the Philippines. Buttheir position not having been accurately determined, it was impossible to identifythem, and every passing navigator laid claim to their discovery. The existenceof the lands south of the Marianas was well known ;but instead of endeavouringto fix their position, mariners rather avoided them, owing to the dangerous shoalsby which they were surrounded.No serious attempt was made at an accurate survey till about 1686, when thefirst " Caroline," from which all the rest were named, was discovered by thepilot Lazeano. This was perhaps Yap, or else Farroilep (Farraulep), whichlies on the meridian of the Marianas some 340 miles south of Guam. ThenCantova prepared the first rough chart of the region round about Lamurek(Namurck) in the central part of the archipelago ;but the scientific exploration ofthe Caroline Sea was first undertaken by Wilson and Ibargoita towards the closeof the eighteenth century. Between 1817 and 1828 occurred the memorableexpeditions of Kotzebue, Freycinet, Duperrey, Dumont d'TJrville and Lutke, afterwhich nothing remained except to fill up the details and explore the interior ofthe several islands. This work of exploration has been stimulated by the questionof sovereignty lately raised between SjDain and Germany, and finally settled bypapal arbitration in favour of the former power.The names of the islands, islets and reefs strewn over the Caroline watersare far from being everywhere clearly defined. Except for some of the largerlands, such as Yap, Ponape and Ualan, custom has not yet decided between thenative appellations variously pronounced by the seafarers of different nationalities,and those given to the difEerent groups by English, French, or Russianexplorers.Most of the Carolines are of coral formation, upheaved some few yards abovesea-level, and many lack sufiicient vegetable humus for trees to strike root betweenthe fissures of the rocks. Some, however,, have gradually been clothed with denseverdure down to the water's edge, and here native settlements have been formedbeneath the shade of the cocoanut palm, the bread-fruit tree and the dark greenbarringtonia. Some of the groups form perfectly regular atolls, where lagoonsaccessible to boats through narrow channels are encircled by a verdant fringe.Satoan, one of the circular islands of the Mortlock group, consists of no less thansixty islets, some a few miles long, others mere pointed rocks, but all disposedsymmetrically round the periphery of the coralline enclosure. Others again, suchas Ruk, Ualan, and Ponape .(2,860 feet), attain considerable elevations, and theseare often clothed to their summits with magnificent trees of few species, conspicuousamongst which are the superb tree-ferns. This evergreen forest vegetationis supported by copious rains, which fall on the slopes of the hills especiallyduring the south-west monsoon.The fauna, like that of the Marianas, is extremely poor, the mammals beingrepresented only by a dog with pointed ears and long pendent tail, and a singlespecies of rat, which is said to have taught the natives the art of obtaining palmwinoby gnawing the crests of the cocoanut palm to get at its sap.The vegetation