Journal of Edwin H. Bryan, Jr. while with the Whitney Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on the schooner France, February to October 1924
Page 195
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Transcription
also black ants, yellow-brown ants, white micros, black flies, gray flies, yellow flies (all small), and spiders. Also a nesting boobie. 150 yards S.S.W. another even smaller kou bush and opposite it on the low, broad, beach a lone Tournefortia, with nesting boobies. The beach is broad and low, composed of fine coral fragments, coarser at the top, with a zone of sand- stone and conglomerate slabs. Numerous turtle holes. Reef very narrow per- haps 50 yards at a maximum, with a very small surf breaking on red-brown coral lumps. Not much drift wood. A boobie nest on the small kou bush yielded a jumping spider, dermestid, small flat brown beetle; and the leaves:- mottled caterpillars, black and yellow flies and white micros. A short but rather heavy surf breaks in upon the S.W. point. The reef is about 30-40 yards wide with large jagged coral rocks sticking out of the water. A slab monument 6 feet high crowns the barren ridge. Roll 19:1 The S.W. point, looking W. from barrier ridge. Some little drift- wood near point. Walked east to "Wreck Point" across S. end of island. S. side with small sandstone slab and coral barrier ridge, 12-16 feet high, with steep slab, pebble, and sand beach. Tame curlew. Numerous sharks in shallow water above reef, which is about 100 feet wide and covered with numerous large, slippery, coral rocks. Drift logs scarce. Roll 19:2 The south reef looking W. Roll 19:3 About all that remains of the wreck of an iron vessel on "Wreck Point" except some rusted plates on the beach and two anchors on the reef. The waves break on "Wreck Point" about 200-250 yards out. There is a little lumber above the point on barrier ridge. North along barrier ridge about 1/4 mile to a small clump of Tournefortia trees; the intervening stretch covered with Sesuvium, Portulaca and Boerhaavia. Roll 19:4 Looking W. from just N. of "Wreck Point" toward several clumps of kou trees and a group of coconuts near center of south side.