THE BAHAMAS 29*3 



Santo Domingo, constitutes the Bahamas. This lies entirely 

 within the Atlantic Ocean, having a trend parallel with 

 that of tin- Antilles. The other group, stretching from 

 Porto Rico southward, popularly known as the Lesser 

 Antilles, lies between the Atlantic and the Caribbean, and 

 has no affinities or relations with the Bahamas. 



Few maps give the same title to the southern islands. 

 By some they are called collectively the Lesser Antilles, by 

 others the Windward Islands; by still others the Carib- 

 bees. On English maps the northern half of the chain is 

 marked the Leeward Islands and the southern half the 

 Windward. For the present let us speak of the whole 

 as the Lesser Antilles, reserving for a later page their 

 more accurate classification, and first disposing of the 

 Bahamas. 



The Bahama group, which stretches through a total dis- 

 tance of 780 miles, includes over G90 islands and islets and 

 2387 rocks, whose total number can hardly he less than 

 3200, and embraces an area of 5600 square miles. The 

 aggregate land surface of all these islands is larger than 

 that of Porto Rico. In aspect the Bahamas are more like 

 the land of our Floridian coast and keys than any of the 

 other West Indies, yet they are so entirely unlike the latter 

 that the traveler who, after visiting them, imagines that 

 he has seen the West Indies is sadly mistaken. 



The Bahamas are not composite lands like the AntilL 

 or volcanic summits like the Caribbees, or even of coral 

 reef-rock origin, as many believe; but all of them, accord- 

 ing to the researches of Professor A. Agassi/, are wind- 

 blown piles of shell and coral sand, once much more 

 extensive t haii now, whose areas have been restricted by 

 a general regional subsidence of some three hundred feet, 

 so that much of their former surface now OCCUTS as shallow 



hanks beneath the water. This sand is not the brown 

 silicious material with which we are familiar, but white 

 shell-sand, the comminuted particles of shells and corals 

 such as still inhabit the waters around these islands, which 



