JAMAICA 1>< 



the upper regions, for one can seldom catch a view of Blue 

 Mountain Peak, the monarch of the system. As the coast 

 is more closely approached and the island encircled, the 

 configuration resolves itself into well-differentiated forms. 



The uplands do not slope gradually to the sea, but are 

 terminated near the coast by very abruptly truncated 

 bluffs and steep slopes, usually, but not everywhere, sepa- 

 rated from the sea by a narrow strip of plain, as if the 

 original coast margins of the mountainous upland had 

 once extended much farther seaward and had been hori- 

 zontally planed away by the beating sea. This abrupt sea 

 face of the mountainous upland is a marked topographic 

 peculiarity, which we shall call the back-coast border. 



The chief features of the topography are the superb 

 summits of the Blue Mountain ridge of the east, sur- 

 rounded by a lower but rugged plateau of white-limestone 

 hills, which extends westward and largely occupies the 

 western two thirds of the island. The secondary features 

 of the topography are interior basins and valleys in the 

 summit of the plateau, certain coastal benches and terraces 

 carved out of the margin of the back-coast border, occa- 

 sional patches of low coastal plain, and deep-cut drainage 

 valleys. 



The Blue Mountain ridge, a sinuous divide with many 

 bifurcating branches, extends one third the length of the 

 island, from near the eastern point toward Port Maria, and 

 has a trend of north of west, parallel to the truncated 

 northeast coast. It presents a serrated crest-line with 

 radiating laterals, whose summits culminate near the 

 center of the ridge in the Blue Mountain Peak (7360 feet). 

 West of this peak the heights gradually decrease until 

 they become lower than those of the limestone plateau. 

 The ceirtral ridge and numerous laterals, which project 

 from it at right angles, present steep angular profiles, like 

 that of an inverted Letter V". Its configuration is singu- 

 larly free from benches, mesa-tops, or cliffs. 



Imagination can picture no more exquisite Bcenery 



