Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Reports of the Percy Salden Trust Expedition to the Indian Ocean in 1905, Under the Leadership of Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A, Vol. 3
On August 22, Fryer left the Seychelles, after a two days' visit to us in Silhouette, on the brig Charlotte, Capt. Pareou, for Astove, Cosmoledo, Assumption and Aldabra. A short report on the first three islands, at each of which he had a few days' stay, appeared in Nature of Dec. 17, 1908. He reached the Aldabra group on Sept. 13, and remained on those islands until Jan. 24, 1909. M. D'emmerez de Charmoy, the enlightened owner, had given orders that every facility Should be placed at Fryer's disposal and he was provided with a pirogue and six men while houses were built for him in four situations so that he might examine the whole of the group. His work during this, the summer season at Aldabra, must have been, as we know by our own experience elsewhere, arduous in the extreme on an island of jagged coral, covered with hard wooded Pemphis acidula, through which all paths had to be cut, and having in the centre 3. Stinking mangrove swamp literally alive with mosquitoes. Even native labour dislikes going to Aldabra, which has an evil reputation second to none in the world. Of course its unhealthiness and unpleasantness can undoubtedly be to some degree cured by cultivation, etc., but to the naturalist the greater wildness has peculiar charms. Mr Fryer's discovery that Aldabra is an elevated coral reef and that it has much phosphatised and peculiar rock with fossil vertebrate remains is of great importance. His description will form' a separate report. On his return Fryer revisited Assumption and Cosmoledo, reaching Victoria on Feb. 12 and England on March 28. We would pay a warm mead of praise to Mr Fryer's energy and pluck in carrying on his work in Aldabra in spite of its many unpleasantnesses and his own consequent ill-health.
Meantime Scott and I left in the government tug Alexandra on July 24 for Silhouette, a most precipitous island feet high, lying 13 miles nw. Of Mahé. It belongs to the Dauban family, of whom M. Edouard Dauban and his wife live on the island; for the kindness and hospitality of this charming family we desire to express our warmest thanks. The island itself is about 12 square miles in size, but within this compass it includes 10 peaks of over feet, all of which are still clothed with indigenous jungle, the fauna and ?ora of which we desired to compare with those of Mahé. Rather more than half the island attains a greater elevation than feet. Further, it seemed advisable to select a smaller island, the better to investigate the causes which have been responsible for the cutting up of the granite masses of the Seychelles into mountains and valleys, and to consider how far these could have been responsible for cutting granite land down to sea level.
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