An occasional log drifts to their shores; and at some of the more isolated atolls, where the natives are ignorant of any land but the spot they inhabit; they are deemed direct gifts from a propitiated deity. These drift-logs were noticed by Kotzebue, at the Marshall Islands, and he remarked also that they often brought stones in their roots. Similar facts were observed by us at the Tarawan group, and also at Enderby's Island, and elsewhere. The stones at the Tarawan Islands, as far as we could learn, are generally basaltic, and they are highly valued for whetstones, pestles, and hatchets. The logs are claimed by the chiefs for canoes. Some of the logs on Enderby's Island were forty feet long, and four in diameter. Fragments of pumice and resin are transported by the waves to the Tarawan Islands. We were informed that the pumice was gathered from the shores by the women, and pounded up to fertilize the soil of their taro patches; and it is so common, that one woman will pick up a peck in a day. Pumice was also met with at Fakaafo. Volcanic ashes are sometimes distributed over these islands, through the atmosphere; and in this manner the soil of the Tonga Islands is improved, and in some places it has received a reddish colour. The officers of the "Vincennes" observed several large masses of compact and cellular basalt on Rose Island, a few degrees east of Samoa: they lie two hundred yards inside of the line of breakers. The island is uninhabited, and the origin of the stories is doubtful; they may have been brought there by roots of trees, or perhaps by some canoe. Notwithstanding the great number of coral islands in the Paumotu Archipelago, the botanist finds there, as Dr Pickering informs me, only twenty-eight or twenty-nine native species of plants. The following are the most common of them: _Portulacca_, two species; _Scævola Konigii_. _Pisonia?_ one species; _Tournefortia sericea_; _Pandanus odoratissimus_; _Lepidium_, one species; _Euphorbia_, one species; _Morinda citrifolia_; _Boerhavia_, two species; _Cassytha_, one species; _Heliotropium prostratum_, _Pemphis acidula_, _Guettarda speciosa_, _Triumphetta procumbens_, _Sauriana maritima_; _Convolvulus_, one species; _Urtica_, one or two species; _Asplenium nidus_; _Achyranthus_, one species; a species of grass. One or two rubiaceous shrubs. _Polypodium_. On Rose Island, Dr Pickering found only the _Pisonia_ and a _Portulacca_. The _Triumphetta procumbens_, a creeping plant, takes root, like the _Portulacca_, in the most barren sands, and is very common. The _Tournefortia_ and _Scævola_ are also among the earliest species. The _Pisonia_, a tree of handsome foliage, the _Pandanus_, or screw-pine, and the cocoa-nut (always an introduced species), constitute the larger part of the forests. In the Marshall group, where the vegetation is more varied, Chamisso observed fifty-two native plants, and, in a few instances, the banana, taro, and bread-fruit.