Solomon Islands, an archipelago 500 miles E. of New Guinea, since 1899 all British except Bougainville, which is German. They stretch SE. in two parallel chains for 600 miles towards the Santa Cruz group. The north-eastern chain embraces Bougainville, Choisenl, Ysabel, and Malaita; the south-western Vella Lavella, Kulambangra, New Georgia, Guadalcanar, and San Cristoval. Besides these, which vary between 70 and 110 miles in length, and are 20 to 30 in width, there are a number of smaller ones. They have a total estimated area of 15,000 sq. m.; are nearly all of volcanic formation, there being one active volcano and several quiescent and extinct volcanoes; and are covered from the seashores to the summits of the highest mountains (10,000 feet in Bougainville, 8000 in Guadalcanar, 4100 in San Cristoval) with dense tropical vegetation. There is an extraordinarily heavy annual rainfall, estimated by Dr Guppy at 400 and even 500 inches on the mountains, and 150 on the coasts. The atmosphere is consequently very moist; and the temperature ranges from 75° to 95° F. The people, stated to number 167,000, show decidedly Papuan or Melanesian characteristics; they are divided into a great number of tribes, constantly at war with one another, and are very suspicious towards strangers. Cruel and savage, they indulge in cannibalism, wear little or no clothing, and tattoo their bodies. Their religion is a kind of ancestor-worship, with attendant mysteries. Totem castes exist on Guadalcanar and some others of the islands. Yams, vegetables, and the cocoa-nut are the principal productions used as food. The fauna of the islands includes a phalanger (cuscus or flying fox), bats, gigantic rats and frogs, very large and very brilliant butterflies. This group was discovered by the Spaniard Mendaña in 1567. Then for two hundred years it was never visited by Europeans, and was virtually rediscovered (1767-88) by Carteret, Bougainville, Surville, Shortland, and other navigators.
See Guppy, The Solomon Islands (2 vols. 1887), and Woodford, A Naturalist among the Head-hunters (1890).