382 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



caused the island to sink into the sea. Some writers of 

 more recent date have explained the shallows of the 

 Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf by alleging them to be 

 remnants of this mythical island. None of these hypoth- 

 eses is correct, however, although there are facts which 

 might seem to the superficial observer to support any one 

 of them. 



The West Indies, as we have shown, are largely the tips 

 of great rugosities of the earth's solid crust, the larger 

 portions of which are submerged below the ocean. Great 

 areas of these irregularities, like the banks of the western 

 Caribbean, do not reach the surface of the water at all ; 

 others, like the Bahamas, rise thousands of feet, yet barely 

 project as tips of land; still others, like the superb Antil- 

 lean Mountains, although two thirds submerged, are so 

 high that they rise ten thousand feet or more above the 

 present sea-level. If the submerged banks could be 

 elevated a hundred fathoms, or, conversely, if the sea 

 could be lowered to the same extent, the area of the 

 West Indies would be nearly doubled. That the sub- 

 merged portions of these ridges and banks have stood 

 much higher than now, making more extensive bodies of 

 land, is most probable; and it is likely that there have 

 been many changes of level. 



It is reasonably certain that the West Indian lands before 

 the close of the Tertiary period were much more extensive 

 than now, and that the Great Antilles were once a con- 

 nected body of land. This being so, without other evi- 

 dence the Windward bridge might have been a possibility. 

 But the facts of biology and geology show us that such 

 was not the case, for if this bridge had existed, the 

 Great and Lesser Antilles would now be populated by 

 the animals common to the two continents, instead of 

 being nearly void of mammals and absolutely without 

 any North American features among their living or fossil 

 land faunas. Furthermore, geological surveys have 

 proved that, during this time of the expanding Antillean 



