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Show CHAPTER XV. THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. Position and Physical features-Zoology o.f the Sandwich Islancls-D.irds -Heptiles-Land-sbells-Insects-Vegetation of the Sandwich Islands -Peculiar features of the Hawaiian Flora-Antiquity of the Hawaiian Fauna and .I!'lora-Concluding observations on the Fauna and Flora of the Sandwich Islands-General Remarks on Oceanic Islands. THE Sandwich Islands are an extensive group of htrge islands situated in the centre of tho North Pacific, being 2,:350 miles from the nearest pn.rt of the American coast-the bay of San Francisco, and about the same distance from the Marquesas and the Samoa Islands to the south, and the Aleutian Islands a little west of north. They are, therefore, wonderfully isolated in mid-ocean, and are only connected with the other Pacific Islands by widely scattered coral reefs and atolls, the nearest of which, however, are six or seven hundred miles distant, and are all nearly destitute of animal or vegetable life. The group consists of seven large inhabited islands besides four rocky islets; the largest, Hawaii, being seventy miles across ·and having an area of 3,800 square miles-being somewhat larger than all the other islands together. A better conception of this large island will be formed by comparing it with Devonshire, with which it closely agrees both in size and shape, though its enormous volcanic mountains rise to nearly 14,000 feet high. Three of the smaller islands are each about the size of Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire, and the whole group stretches from northwest to south-east for a distance of about 3.50 miles. Though so CllAP. xv.] '!'liE SANDWICH ISLA.~DS. extensive, the entire archipelago is volcanic, and tho largest island is rendered sterile and comparatively uninhabitable by its three active volcanoes and their widespread deposits of lava. The oce::m depths by which these islands are separated from the nearest continents are enormous. North, east, and south, soundings have b~cn obtn.incd a little over or under three thousand fathoms, and those profound deeps extend over a large part of MAP OF TUE SA.NDWICU ISLANDS. The light tint shows whore tho son is less thnn 1,000 fnthoms deep. The tlg ,.res shuw the dl:pLh in fathoms. the North Pacific. We mn.y be quite sure, therefore, that the Sandwich Islands have, during their whole existence, been as completely severed from the great continents as they are now; but on the west and south there is a possibility of more extensive islands having existed, serving as stepping-stones to the island groups of the Mid-Pacific. This is in(licate<.l by a few widely-scn.ttered coral islets, arouml which extend considerable |
