THE OUTLYING GROUPS Within this section fall the Marquesas islands, Palmyra, Wash ington, Fanning and Christmas islands, the Hawaii islands, Easter island, Sala-y-Gomez, etc.
The Marquesas Archipelago, east from Caroline atoll, consists of two somewhat distinct groups of high volcanic islands, peculiar in the comparative rarity of coral fringes to their coasts. Total area 48o sq.m. Pop. (1924) 2,300. The north-western group has seven islands, the four largest being Ua Pou or Adam island, Ua Huka or Washington, Nukuhiva (7o m. in circumference, and the most important of the whole archipelago) and Eiao. The south-eastern group consists of the islands of Fatu Hiva or Mag dalena, Motane or San Pedro, Tahuata or Santa Christina, and Hiva Oa or Dominica, the last with a coast-line of more than 6o m.
Along the centre of each of the main islands is a ridge of moun tains, rising to between 3,00o and 4,000 ft., from which rugged spurs forming deep valleys stretch toward the sea. There are no active volcanoes. Vegetation is luxuriant in the valleys, which are well watered by streams. The flora is abundant, many of the species identical with those of the Society islands, but more indig enous land mammalian fauna is remarkably poor. Land birds are of comparatively few species. On the other hand, marine forms of animal life are as abundant as around other sub-tropical Poly nesian groups. The climate is hot and damp but not unhealthy; the temperature during the six months' rainy season, which begins at the end of November, varies between 84° and 91°, and during the rest of the year between 77° and 86°. It is tempered by mod erate easterly trade winds, and in the larger islands by the alterna tion of land and sea breezes. The natives, purely Polynesians, are reputed to be physically the finest of the South Sea islanders, and at the incoming of Europeans were numerous, warlike and active, but have since very greatly diminished in number and energy.
The islands were discovered in 1595 by Mendana who only knew the south-eastern group. The remaining islands were dis covered from time to time subsequently. In 1842, of ter French Roman Catholic missionaries had prepared the way, the islands were annexed by France. The islands were almost abandoned between 186o-187o. They are now administered together with the other French possessions in the Eastern Pacific from Tahiti. The
natives have outwardly adopted Christianity. Large numbers of swine and fowls are reared.
The Line islands (or America islands) north of the Equator, sometimes called Palmyra, Washington and Fanning, and Christ mas islands, are low atolls which would hardly be distinguishable from a distance but for their tall coco-nut palms. Palmyra (i1 sq.m.), uninhabited but occasionally visited for the gathering of the coco-nut crop, the smallest, is remarkable in that it has three distinct lagoons. Washington (31 by I/ miles), pop. 6o, and Fan ning (91 by 4 miles), pop. (1926) 447, are of much greater im portance, both having for many years been more or less success fully cultivated by Europeans employing labour imported from the Gilbert islands. Fanning, since 1902, has been a Pacific Cable Board station, with a large staff of employees. Christmas island (40 m. long, with an average width of 35 m.), pop. (1922) Euro peans 4, Tahitians 28, the largest atoll in the Pacific, has been the scene of several attempts at coco-nut cultivation. It was discov ered by Captain Cook in '777 and annexed by Britain in 1888 and included in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in 1919. It was leased to the Central Coco-nut Plantations Ltd., for 87 years in 1914. South of the Equator the northernmost of the Line islands is Jarvis island (area 11 sq.m., pop. 3o), a small treeless and al most grassless islet, which has obviously been elevated some io or 12 ft. above sea-level; it has, or had, considerable deposits of guano. South-east from Jarvis island, a chain of more or less simi lar islets, the principal of which are Malden (35 sq.m.), Starbuck sq.m.), extends—but at considerable distances from each other Caroline, Vostok and Flint atolls. All these islands belong to Britain, Fanning, Washington and Christmas islands being a part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. Adjacent to Pitcairn island there are small uninhabited islands, namely Oeno and Ducie atolls, and Henderson, or Elizabeth island, which last named is remarkable as being an eighty feet high flat-topped island which appears to have been raised by some subterranean convulsion.
The Hawaiian group (Sandwich islands) are treated in a separate article. The remaining outlying Pacific islands, e.g., Easter island, Sala-y-Gomez and the Galapagos islands are also treated elsewhere.