A number of surface soil samples were taken and will be reported on elsewhere. The soils found on the island are typically sand based with additions of varying amounts of organic material of two types, bird guano and decayed vegetable material much of which is processed by the hermit crabs. Much of the inner slopes - the wider found on the west side - are covered to a depth of several dm. with a sandy soil overlaying which overlays wave deposited coral rubble. Many areas on the N and S sides which are more recent deposits judging from the lack of soil cover have pockets of sand but these are often too far from the surface to provide a habitat for plants. In other areas coral waverows have been filled with wind and wave deposited sand and on which pioneer plant species such as Boerhavia and Portulaca find a niche. Often these waverows become obscured by the deposition of sand and the formation of soil subsequent to the formation of plant communities. The soils range from almost pure sand to those which contain a low degree of organic material. In some small sites such as thick stands of Lepturus, under Tournefortia and Cordia groves and in locally more mesic sites with lusher vegetation one will finds[illegible] correspondingly higher amounts of organic material mixed with the sand. A second type of soil is found in the low, former lagoon flats and present lagoon with its numerous islets. On the flats one finds a reddish brown, friable soil derived from guano accumulations of nesting seabirds. At the dry edges of the present lagoon a highly saline soil also with admix- tures of guano is found. On the dry islets a lighter powdery guane soil with an admixture of salts and calcium-carbonates derived from exposed fossil layers of mollusks which inhabited the old lagoon, is found. On this soil type are found Sesuvium and Eragrostis and sparingly Portulaca lutea, Sida fallax and Lepturus. At perhaps a half m. elevation above these low guano soil area one finds Portulaca as a common component of partially guano filled soils. It may be that with the lowering of the flats due to the guano mining that the areas for optimal growth of the Sesuvium - Eragrostis association were increased to the detriment of that area on which was found at an elevation only perhaps a half meter higher the Portulaca - Lepturus association which may have characterised much of the guano filled areas of the dry central Pacific atolls. The concentric pattern of atoll vegetation can be seen on Enderbury