ELLICE (

See also:

• LAGOON (Fr. lagune, Lat. lacuna, a pool)

LAGOON) ISLANDS  , an archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, lying between 50 and 11° S. and about 178° E., nearly midway between Fiji and Gilbert . It is under British protection, being annexed in 18g2 . It comprises a large number of low coralline islands and atolls, which are disposed in nine clusters extending over a distance of about 400 M. in the direction from N.W. to S.E . Their total area is 14 sq. m. and the population is about 2400 . The chief groups, all yielding coco-nuts, pandanus fruit and yams, are Funafuti or Ellice, Nukulailai or Mitchell, Nurakita or Sophia, Nukufetau or De Peyster, Nui or Egg, Nanomana or Hudson, and Niutao or Lynx . Nearly all the natives are Christians, Protestant missions having been long established in several of the islands . Those of Nui speak the language of the Gilbert islanders, and have a tradition that they came some generations ago from that group . All the others are of Samoan speech, and their tradition that they came thirty generations back from Samoa is supported by recent research . They have an ancient spear which they believe was brought from Samoa, and they actually name the valley from which their ancestors started . A missionary visiting the Samoan valleyfound there a tradition of a party who put to sea never to return, and he also found the wood of which the staff was made growing plentifully in the district . Borings and soundings taken at Funafuti in 1897 indicate almost beyond doubt that the whole of this Polynesian region is an area of comparatively recent subsidence . See Geographical Journal, passim; and Atoll of Funafuti: Borings into a Coral Reef (Report of Coral Reef Committee of Royal Society, London, 1904) .