60 Messrs. A. and E. Newton's Observations 



miles. It was discovered by Columbus on his second voyage, in 

 1493 ; and the name bestowed on it by the " grand Admiral " is 

 still the one most frequently used in conversation. It is supposed 

 to have been fii'st settled by the English and Dutch about 1625, 

 and for the next five-and-twenty years was, like all the adjacent 

 islands, the scene of constant bloodshed. In 1650 the Spaniards 

 made a descent upon it from Porto Rico, and completely de- 

 stroyed the rising plantations, but in their turn were very shortly 

 afterwards expelled by the French, who proceeded to found a 

 colony there. The settlement proved to be very unhealthy : three 

 governors in succession and two-thirds of the colonists died the 

 first year ; and, as it was deemed, and no doubt rightly so, that 

 the insalubrity was caused by the dense and aged forests which 

 covered the island, the survivors determined to burn them down. 

 Accordingly, having set fire to them, they retreated to their 

 ships and witnessed the conflagration, only returning when the 

 fire had burnt itself out*. Since this, the island has had a high 

 reputation for healthiness. 



That the simultaneous and sudden destruction by fire of all 

 the woods in an island like this would have a marked and lasting 

 efl^ect upon its Fauna, no one can doubt ; and one of its results 

 may probably be traced in a fact ascertained by Herr Apothek 

 Riise of St. Thomas, that in St. Croix there occur the " dead " 

 shells of about a dozen species of terrestrial MoUusks, of which 

 he has never found a single example inhabited by the living 

 animal, though they are undoubtedly recent and not fossil 

 forms. It is difficult to account for the extinction of so many 

 species, unless it may be presumed that the changes brought 

 about in the island by so great a fire, rendered it unsuitable for 

 their longer habitation. It is fair to suppose that the Birds were 

 affected, in at least some degree, like the Mollusks ; particularly 

 when we observe that, though St. Croix lies some way removed 

 from the chain of the neighbouring islands, no one species is to be 

 found there which is peculiar to it alone — the case with nearly 

 all the AVest Indian islands^ whose ornithology has been inves- 

 tigated, being the reverse, — and further when we discover, that 



* Abridged from ' An Historical Account of St. Thomas, W. I., with 

 notices of St. Croix and St. John's.' Bv John P. Knox. New York, 1852. 



