8 CUBA AND POltTO EICO 



000 square miles, or one sixth the area of the North and 

 Central American continents, while the land area of all the 

 islands is nearly 100,000 square miles, not quite equal to 

 that of the State of Colorado. 



The traveler who would circumnavigate the American 

 Mediterranean, as the Gulf and Caribbean may be collec- 

 tively termed, keeping the bordering lands in sight, say 

 by entering at the Florida capes, and following the shores 

 of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Mexico, 

 Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela 

 to Trinidad, and thence up the inner margins of the Wind- 

 ward Islands and the southern shores of the Great An- 

 tilles back to the point of beginning, would be obliged to 

 travel twelve thousand miles nearly one half the earth's 

 circumference. 



A word as to directions must be added. The prevalent 

 trends are east and west in this region. The longest axes 

 of the seas and islands are along east-and-west lines. Even 

 the coasts of the surrounding mainlands are thus arranged. 

 A glance at the straight east-and-west Caribbean coast of 

 South America, Honduras, and Guatemala shows that 

 the S-shaped outline of the isthmus also has a prevalent 

 east-and-west direction. 



Volumes might be devoted to descriptions of the won- 

 derful waters of the American Mediterranean. They have 

 many phases of depth, current, temperature, and life, but 

 we can only touch upon the essentials. This great tropi- 

 cal body of water is not merely an arm of the ocean, in- 

 denting and almost separating the American continents, 

 but is a deep and well-defined marine basin or series of 

 basins, more completely closed on the Atlantic side than 

 is apparent from a glance at the map. The numerous 

 islets of its eastern border, the Bahamas and Windward 

 chain, which extend from Florida to the mouth of the 

 Orinoco, are merely the summits of steep submarine ridges, 

 which divide the depths of the Atlantic from those of the 

 Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea; were their waters a 



