The Tuamotu Archipelago is the scene of the principal pearl fisheries of the South Seas; and from the local importance of this industry the group is sometimes called the Pearl Islands. These coral-formed islands are strung out for a distance of 900 miles in a northwest and southeast direction, and extend from Lat. 14° to 23° S. and from Long. 136° to 149° W. They number about seventy-eight, many of them made up of small atolls only a few feet above the surface of the ocean, and with an aggregate area of about 360 square miles. The total population is approximately 6000, with many visitors from Tahiti and other neighboring islands during the pearling season. The principal products are pearl shell and pearls, copra, and cocoanut oil; and nearly one half of the islands yield nothing but shell and pearls. The chief port is Fakarava on an island of the same name, and the trade is almost entirely with Tahiti. As the Tuamotus are of coral formation, they produce little vegetable growth, and the people seem often on the brink of starvation, forming a striking contrast with those of the neighboring Society Islands. Drawing their subsistence entirely from the sea, except for the native cocoanuts and breadfruit, these people have, at times, been in great straits for food, and it was doubtless severe hunger that drove them to the acts of cannibalism with which they have been charged. And the sea which supplies them with food has also visited them with great destruction. As recently as January, 1903, a great storm swept over this group, drowning over 500 of the inhabitants, and destroying a very considerable portion of the pearling fleet and other property. The pearl-oyster reefs of the Tuamotu Archipelago are very extensive, only eight or ten of the islands failing to contribute to the supply. They occur in the protected lagoons of the atolls, where the bottom is well covered with coral growth, with numerous elevations and depressions of various sizes; and it is about the bases and in the recesses of these coral growths that the best shells are usually found. Most of them are of the black-edged variety of _Margaritifera margaritifera_, which here attains a great size, reaching a diameter of twelve inches in extreme cases. While pearl-oysters are found about nearly all of the Tuamotu Islands, the reefs are richest at Hikueru or Melville Island. When that lagoon is open it is the scene of the greatest operations, and it is credited with nearly one half of the total product of the archipelago. At the opening of the season, this is the resort of fishermen from all over the group, even from a distance of five hundred miles, and thousands of natives camp in temporary leaf-thatched huts among the cocoanut-palms on the beach, those from the different islands congregating in isolated settlements. As many as five thousand persons are sometimes brought together in this way. [Illustration: THE PEARLING REGIONS IN OCEANIA AND MALAYSIA ]