16. sand shows no rock anywhere except what has been carried by natives for house building. The sand is very deep but probably rests on coral stone as in places where it is shallow near the lagoon edge rock is encountered at no great depth. The vege- tation is mostly coconuts with grass in between, a great many being self sown or natural planted, or coconuts with low scrubs of mostly soft wood (pois noir, the french name of a very common shrubby tree) casuarinas and beach type shrubs and in a few places a low 10 ft. fairly dense ti tree and other beach scrubs are found, but the bulk of the area probably 90% or more is under coconuts. The vegetation has formed a thin layer of sandy loam over the sand to a depth of a few inches but the line of de- marcation is very distinct, one being pure sand and white and the other a darker vegetable loam and sand mixture. This soil is very poor and quickly exhausted and is used for no gardening except for a few bananas and legumes such as beans (haricot and Mauritious) climbing sword and punch beans). Coconuts apparently do well in this soil and appear to suffer no ill effects. Along the base of this bank near the swamp margin, where doubtless, considerable water born soil has washed down, a few native fruit trees are found, rose apple and bread fruit, but except in a few cases these do very poorly. A consideration of the vegetation of the whole island falls into 2 main groups with numbers of sub groups. The first natural forest is divisible into 2 main types and a sub type. The second and by far the greater portion of the island falls under this heading, is induced, introduced, or gardening and cultural growths which fall under 2 main heads, permanent culture and garden or rotation culture areas in their various phases.