enclosing quay, inadequate for berthing anything larger than small private schooners and local fishing craft. This basin lies behind a protecting arm of filled earthen breakwater within a natural reef barrier. At present the port has little commercial value in the absence of an active commercial fishing industry in the Marianas and probably will not be developed until Agaña itself grows again.
Scientist Alexander Agassiz, one of the great modern scientific authorities on the Pacific islands, wrote a description of Guam as he first studied it at the turn of the century, from the decks of the Albatross, an American survey ship. Sighting Guam from the eastern-shore promontory of Point Hanom, Agassiz noted coralliferous limestone terraces in the yellow cliff facing north from Pago Bay which mark the position of the ancient sea and indicate periods of rest during the eon-long phases of the island's evolution. The cliffs of the northern plateau vary from three hundred to five hundred feet in height. Their hurricane-scarred, sea-pocked faces are riddled with crevasses above the shore line, and at a higher level with caverns (some the last refuges of Japanese occupying forces during the siege of 1944), showing where the sea paused at some time to eat away at the island.
North of Point Anao some of the sharp limestone cliffs are even striated with layers of mineral deposit, early evidence of great natural volcanic disturbances and of the entire northern half of the island's being a great raised coral and limestone platform with fillings of eruptive substance: probably a peak—as are the other Marianas—of some great prehistoric submarine mountain range.
Talago "Lookout" Bay, located at the angled and flattened northern tip of the island, is a narrow cliffside beach of sparkling beige sand backgrounded by a strip of lush ferns and flowers set against the cliff itself. Rising out of the comparatively broad reef platform that guards its surf from the swirling deeps offshore are fantastic gnarled horseheads of coral, squatting like primitive idols in the clear surf. These heads extend along the shore line around the entire northern tip of the island and cease only where the southern upper coast begins to taper into a few promontory fingers and small sandy beaches below Ritidian Point. It was from the heights of this superb prominence above the beach that the ancient Chamorros first looked out for vessels coming from the northern islands, and later, from Manila or Acapulco.
To the south of upcurved, four-mile Orote Peninsula (the southern lip of Apra Harbor and a raised, cliff-lined plateau forming an excellent natural lower bulwark for the harbor), a narrow flat reef juts out from the southwest coast at various places into extended spurs of the abrupt volcanic slopes tumbling into the sea. At Merizo Bay—the extreme southern point of Guam—a broad reef projects out into the deep ocean, then turns and reaches eastward around the hook of Aga Point, almost past Agfayan Bay. On an outcropping of this reef, but separated from the main projection by a deep coral-studded channel, lies Cocos Island, about a mile and a half from shore. On this low and sprawling mile-long strip of land is a small Coast Guard station, a stand of coconut palms, and a vivid shore line. Cocos is the largest of the eight tiny islands off the shores of Guam and, with the exception of Cabras Island, is the only one inhabited. In 1949's violent typhoon, waves cut directly across the island, inundating it entirely at one time and leaving a wide swath of destruction across its center.
Small reefs border the shore line north of Agfayan, and an outlet reef encircles the lip of Talofofo Bay, while a long and narrow reef edges the coast line north to upper Pago Bay (where the land has already risen into the beginnings of the northern plateau). The shore line is characterized by the chalky striated cliffs, first described by Agassiz, which rise slowly as they run further north into the awesome limestone masses at Point Anao. From lates to Anao the reef flat runs in close against the shore.
Geologically, the southern half of Guam consists of what Agassiz observed from the Albatross as "a volcanic massif which has burst through the coralliferous limestone," and which at Mount Tenjo, a foliaged prominence just behind Apra Harbor, rises to a precipitous height of more than a thousand feet, and constitutes the furthest western mountainous projection on the island. The volcanic range to which Mount Tenjo and Mount Lamlam belong bursts through again near Agaña and extends southward, parallel to the west coast, at a distance of about a mile inland.
The island's highest point is Mount Lamlam, as mentioned earlier; it was called Humuyong-manglo by the aborigines, or "source of the wind." A rare viewpoint offering an unimpaired vista of the entire island, it lifts its cool green mass and summit above the white-ringed aquamarine crescent of Umatac Bay. Erosion, infertility, and the constant play of trade winds across the mountain's exposed flanks—have led to denudation of forests and left them subject to the ravages of weeds, the ubiquitous tangantangan, and sparse low-growing ironwood trees. The limestone masses which once encased Guam's mountains have to a great degree disappeared through disintegration. The soft material now covering their slopes is held in place only by the overgrowth of short, densely-matted shrubs and small trees; still, there is in a constant process of washing away into the rain-fed streams of the interior valleys, streams that find their way to both coasts.
CLIMATE AND SEASONS
Lying in the heart of the true tropics, Guam is also in the path of the trade winds blowing from northeast and east, down and across the island in the general direction of China. Guam is more humid in climate than Hawaii, more benign than the Philippines. Sparse rains fall in the winter months—from December through March (invierno)—and heavy precipitation occurs in the summer months (verano). Thus the year may be roughly divided into a rainy and a dry season, though this division does not necessarily complement the temperature, for the period of Guam's maximum heat precedes the period of its maximum rainfall.
The winter trade winds are Guam's blessing. In June the blessing is gone, the wind veers away, and by September what is generally known as the "southwest monsoon" clamps down on the island. From September until the winter holidays is frequently a time of heavy and oppressive weather, though the rest of the year is pleasant enough to be termed practically perfect.
Guam's temperature is surprisingly steady, rarely dropping below 70°F., seldom rising above 90°F. However, the relative humidity is often quite high, and if it were not for the sustained freshening effect of the trade winds, the density would be excessive. Seasons will not seem marked to a visitor on Guam, although indigenous inhabitants will point out that certain wasps, which in the summer months make their nests in the open fields, in the winter invade the country and city houses, hibernating under eaves, under bookshelves, in closets and empty boxes, sometimes even in rolled newspapers and open light sockets.
Hurricanes have a season too, although they have been known to visit the island in every season. According to available records however, they appear to have been most frequent during the opposite months of April and November, because mid-ocean low-pressure areas that spawn them occur most often during these months. In April 1949, a high destructive wind of typhoon force swept the island, its tranquil eye lying only a few hundred miles off the western shore. In November 1949, a major typhoon hit the island head-on, with gusts estimated at more than 135 miles per hour. Recording instruments were blown away at this point, and the wind may well have exceeded this speed. The typhoon did several millions of dollars' worth of damage, but no lives were lost, and only two people were injured during the storm.
It is interesting to contrast the above record with that of the first typhoon noted in island archives, occurring on September 8, 1671, in the midst of a small war between the Spaniards and the Chamorros. Described as a "baguio" (high wind) by the natives, it was the most furious ever remembered as striking the island. The eye passed directly over the island, and the wind blew from many different directions in a short time, causing serious damage to Guam's agriculture, which was extremely important to the island in those days. The wind blew down most of the palm-thatched homes in Agaña as well as homes in the other towns of the island, including the houses of the chief insurgents against the Spanish. A great many people were killed by falling debris and inadequate shelter. The storm tore up precious breadfruit trees, coconut palms, and many other food plants, thus not only causing immediate food shortages but assuring them for some time to come. Destroyed also
