Image: Clipperton Rock (1899)

Description: from Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1899). "The Fiji Islands and Coral Reefs" Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Vol. 33, p. 106. Admiral Wharton has given a most interesting sketch of Clipperton Atoll, in which he confirms the trachytic nature of the "Rock" of Clipperton, as determined by Professor Wolff from specimens collected by Mr. Jensen and kindly sent me by Professor Davidson. The photographs and specimens collected by Mr. J. T. Arundel, on which Admiral Wharton's notice is based, have enabled him to give what seems to me a natural explanation of the character of the atoll. As he says, it is "the rare case of coral forming on the lip of a volcanic cater, one part of which alone, perhaps the plug, has resisted the action of the sea, which has worn the rest of it down to the limits of wave action." The forgoing figure is a veiw of the rock (trachytic) rising to a height of sixty-two feet on the rim of the atoll. Admiral Wharton calls attention to the great depth of this lagoon, perhaps fifty fathoms, as a depth not improbable if it be the crater of an extinct volcano. It would be most interesting to have Clipperton carefully examined and mapped. In the mean time, from its analogy with Totoya and Thombia [in Fiji], it seems to me that Admiral Wharton's explanation is the only possible one. We may perhaps add that the old rim may have also been subject to atmospheric denudation and erosion, in addition to being blown away in part of some eruption. (pp. 106–107)

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