THE BUILDING OF AN ISLAND. 73 



exit, but otherwise the bar remains permanent, and is covered with a strip of 

 the usual seaside veg^etation. There is a similar, but much smaller, pond at 

 the estate Coakley Bay. 



The lagoon at Christiansted and the creek known as Salt River differ from 

 the ponds above mentioned in being deeper, the former having a depth of eight 

 or nine feet, the latter over twelve feet in the deepest parts; but thev, like the 

 other enclosed waters, are slowly filling up. The Christiansted Lagoon has two 

 branches, each of which ends in flat, swampy land ; and when we examine these 

 places we can see that it onlv requires time to extend this condition through 

 both arms and finally through the body of the lagoon. Salt River, in its inner- 

 most portions, shows the same tendency, and at its upper end are some fine, 

 flat, fertile lands that have doubtlessly resulted from a like filling up in earlier 

 times. 



This "filling up" of several areas around the coast seems necessarilv to 

 implv a previous sinking of the land sufficient to form the ponds and lagoons 

 now being slowly filled. That such sinking has taken place appears to be con- 

 firmed bv the form of the bottom of Christiansted harbour, the deepest part 

 of which, passing through the Long Reef by the Ship Channel, seems only to 

 be a continuation of the watercourse coming down from the great rift in the 

 hills known as "Spring Gut." The channel is kept open, it is true, by quite a 

 different agencv, namelv. the outward current resulting from the accumulation 

 inside the harbour of the water dashing over the Long Reef ; but its origin 

 is probably as suggested. 



A sinking, such as has been above supposed to have taken place, need not, 

 however, have been the last movement of the island's surface. The position 

 of the beach limestone, on which part of the town of Frederiksted stands, 

 seems indeed to imply a slight recent movement of elevation, if not general, 

 at all events in that part of the island. 



When from a point of vantage we look down the course of one of the 

 larger valleys, such as that which passes through the North West Hills from 

 Mt. Stewart and opens out on the plain near Prosperity, we are struck not 

 onlv by the beauty of the landscape, but by its complications, and we get the 

 same impression when we turn to the map and see how the stream is here and 

 there turned aside, and how the spurs from the side hills come out into the 

 valley, leaving even at times what seem to be almost isolated hills. Yet there 

 can be no doubt that when the valley first began to be formed the case was 

 simple enough, the drainage merely followed the slope that had been given to 

 the mass by the elevating forces, whether the slope was given by a force act- 

 insf in one direction or whether it was the resultant of two or more forces actina- 

 in different directions. Hence when we have geological evidence of the direc- 

 tion of the recent force we generally find the geographical evidence to coincide 

 with it that is to say, the streams run in the direction of the dip of the strata. 

 If they do not, there must be special grounds for the divergence, though per- 

 haps we may not be able to discover them. In general we have seen that this 



