146 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



sprang; the other an integral pari of Spain, whose people 

 rejoice in the name of Spaniards. The Cubans are fired 

 with the spirit of progress and infected with American 

 notions, while the Porto Ricans are plodding along in con- 

 tentment, without permitting serious thoughts of revolu- 

 tion to bring insomnia to a Utopian land where sleepiness 

 is not a crime. 1 



Porto Rico is the smallest and most eastern of the Great 

 Antilles; at the same time, the most productive in pro- 

 portion to area, the most densely settled, and the most 

 established in its customs and institutions. It is also 

 notable among the West Indian group for the reason that 

 its preponderant population is of the white race, and that 

 it produces sufficient foodstuffs to supply its inhabitants, 

 as well as some of the neighboring islands. 



Although it nowhere attains the great altitudes of the 

 other Antilles, the island is practically the eastward con- 

 tinuation of the Antillean chain of uplifts. It rises from 

 the shallow submerged bank which borders it for a few 

 miles, and which is a continuation of that of the other An- 

 tilles. Thus, with the surface of the island, it is the upward 

 extension of the remarkable slope which, at least on the 

 north side, descends nearly thirty thousand feet to the 

 bottom of the Brownson Deep, until recently supposed to 

 be the deepest hole in the world. 



Its outline presents the appearance of an almost geo- 

 metrically regular parallelogram, nearly three times longer 

 than broad, with its four sides following the four cardinal 

 directions. The sea-line, unlike that of Cuba, is perfectly 

 straight, and the coast is usually low, especially on the 

 southern side, although there are a few headlands. It is 

 also void of fringing keys or deep indentations of its coast, 

 such as border the island of Cuba. 



Porto Rico is the smallest of the four Great Antilles, 

 Jamaica exceeding it in size by 500 square miles. It is 95 

 miles long, 35 miles wide, and has an area of 3668 square 



1 Since this was written the Americans have carried liberty to the island. 



