KAUAI, 67 miles N.W. of Maui and 23 miles from Molokai, has an irregularly circular form ; and at the centre is the basaltic mountain Waialeale, 5000 feet high, which has a swampy top and sides deeply furrowed by ravines, showing that volcanic action has been long extinct. To the west of the mountain is a tableland with an elevation of 4000 feet and an area of 40 spume miles, terminating at the sea in a precipice of 2000 feet. The valleys are numerous, deep, and very picturesque with wood and waterfalls. The soil is fertile, the lavas of nearly the whole island being much decomposed. In some places, however, are cones which have preserved their craters. Numerous dykes are exposed in the valleys, and there are large caverns in several localities which are thought to have been meat bubbles in the lava. In one place near the shore is a bank of calcareous sand which on being set in motion gives out a curious noise. When the grains were examined with the microscope they were found to contain cavities, and it is supposed that these minute hollows are the cause of the resonance, for when the sand is wet the noise is not hoard. A district on the north side of the island is considered to be the best watered and most fertile in the entire group ; it contains several sugar plantations. In this part the rainy season extends over nine months. The chief town is Waimea (population 1200), which affords the best anchorage in Kauai ; it is situated at the mouth of a stream navigable by boats for three quarters of a mile.

Nil [tali, the most westerly island of the group, is 15 miles west of Kauai. Two-thirds of it consist of a low plain composed of an uplifted coral reef and matter washed down from the mountains. The hilly portion is destitute of cones, craters, peaks, and ridges. The coast on the side towards Kauai is formed of high cliffs, and from the similarity of the structure of the rocks on the two sides of the strait it is thought that the islands were onee united. The soil of Niihau is dry, yet fertile. The island is the property of a foreigner who pastures about 75,000 sheep upon it. The uninhabited islets of Kaula and Letitia, close to Niihau, have each of them a tufa cone.

See G. Mortimer, Observations during a Voyage to the... Sandwich islands. &e., Lend., 1791; G. F. Mathison, Nair. of a Visit to the Sandwich Istands, 1825; W. Ellis, Narrative . . . with Rernarks on the Sandwich Islands, 1826; l'op. of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands, 1S24-25, Loud.. 1826; J. James. Hist. of the Sandwich Islands, Boston, U.S., 1S43; 11. T. Cheerer, Life eu the .Sandwich Islands. 1851; W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,1853; S. S. llill. Travels in time Sandwich Islands, 1856; Ch. Wilkes, U.S.N., Narrative of _Exploring Exped. round the World, 1838-42, New York, 1856; T. Williams, The Sandwich Islands, 1.031(1., 1858; Hopkins, Hawaii Past, Present, and Future, Lend., 186G; Jules Remy, Resits Sun vieux sausage, pour servir a l'histoire ancicnne du Hawaii, Chalons sue Marne, 1859; Id., Ka M000ielo Ilauaii, histoire de l'a•chipel hawaiien (text and translation), Paris, 1862; II. Mann, Flora of the Hawaiian islands (Boston, 1868), and his papers in ,Meta. Boston Soc., 1869, and in P•oc. of Amer. Acad., vol. vin., 1868; Brigham, " Notes on Hawaiian Volcanoes," in Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. 110l. (Boston, 1668-69), and his papers in the Globus, 1876, and the Ausland, 1876; Hann, ](lima der Sandwich Inseln," in Zeitschrilt der Oester•. Ges. ffir Meteo•, viii., 1873; W. R. Bliss, Paradise in the Pacific, New Yoik, 1873; Nordhoff, Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich islands, London, ]S74; C. to Varigmy, Quato•ze aims aux l'es Sandwich, Paris, 3874; 11. M. Whitney, Time Hawaiian Guidebook, Honolulu, 1875; Thrum, Hawaiian Almanac for 1875. Honolulu, 1875: Ferreiro," Las isles de Sandwich descublertas per los Espalioies," in Boletin de to Soc. Geogr. de Madrid, 1877. For further bibliographical details see Hawaiian Club Papers, Boston, 1S68, and W. Malin, Cat. d'uurrages relatifs our lies Ilawami, Paris, 1867. A map of Hawaii is given In Petermann's Mittheil, 1876, and one of the other islands, ibid., 1878. (J. Y. J.)