24 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



loidal rocks which usually characterize the aeolian rocks a little inland, 

 away from the immediate action of the sea, where the red earth wliich 

 once filled the cavities has become a part of the rock itself. As we 

 rise we pass into the regular stratified seolian rocks, still retaining their 

 original structures, and only coated with a thin ringing crust at the sur- 

 face. On reaching the summit and descending the hills, we come upon 

 a low flat,^ which separates the Blue Hills from the undulating plateau 

 district known as the Seven Hills. These are six or seven irregular 

 ranges, slight undulations merely, running more or less parallel with the 

 Blue Hill range, which occupy the country between it and the south 

 shore. These hills follow in rapid succession, and are perhaps twenty 

 to twenty-five feet above the general line of the slope, which ends in the 

 low flat behind the south beach. These hills become less and less promi- 

 nent as we go south, and the last scarcely rises above the flat just referred 

 to. The shore plateau imm.ediately behind the beach is low and swampy, 

 filled with clusters of mangroves, and when we reach the beach there are 

 extensive mangrove flats extending some distance out (for about half a 

 mile) from the shore line, and islets of mangroves running parallel with 

 the line of the beach (Plate XVII.). This must evidently have been 

 formerly a mangrove swamp similar to the one to the rear of the beach, 

 which occupied undoubtedly a position similar to it at the foot of a low 

 seolian hill m the valley between it and the next range, or between it 

 and the old shore line, which by subsidence and erosion has been brought 

 to its present level. All the way from the Blue Hills to the mangrove 

 swamp the vegetation consisted of small pines thickly crowded together. 

 In the more open spaces young pine shoots were starting up in all 

 directions, and in the lower and more swampy districts between the 

 successive ranges of hills groves of palmettos of all sizes varied some- 

 what the monotony of the pine barrens. Intermingling with the pines 

 and palmettos are large tracts covered by bushes, and near the shore 

 often prominent patches of larger trees. The pines and palmettos are 

 affected by the proximity of the sea, being of a smaller size and growing 

 less vigorously ; while on the beach itself, and immediately behind it, 

 we come upon the common plants characteristic of the shore line of the 

 Bahamas. 



1 The rock exposed upon this flat resembles the more or less rotten aeolian rock 

 characteristic of Grantstown Flat. 



