SOILS OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS 



BY 



CHARLES N. MOONEY, S. B., 

 Assistant in Soil Survey, U. S. Bureau of Soils, Washington, D. C. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A reconnoissance and survey of the soils of the Bahama Islands was under- 

 taken during the summer of 1903, while the author was a member of the 

 Expedition sent out to the Bahama Islands by the Geographical Society of 

 Baltimore. In making this reconnoissance the field methods which have been 

 elaborated by the U. S. Bureau of Soils were employed. The U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture kindly provided a field outfit, including a portable laboratory. 

 This was installed in a private residence at Nassau, and many important soil 

 analyses were made in the field. 



The area surveyed and mapped amounted in all to about 700 square miles, 

 and included five islands and a few small cays, viz. : New Providence, Eleu- 

 thera. Cat, Long and Watlings Islands, and Eum Cay and the cays adjacent 

 to New Providence and Eleuthera. The other islands visited were Andros 

 and Great Abaco, but owing to lack of time no mapping was attempted. 

 In carrying forward this work the author was assisted by Messrs. J. C. Brit- 

 ton and E. T. Hughes. 



AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 



Practically nothing is -known of the agriculture of the Lucayans, the 

 aboriginal inhabitants of the Bahamas. Neither Columbus, upon his dis- 

 covery, nor the Spaniards who visited the Islands later, recorded any of their 

 observations upon agriculture as it then existed. Columbus, however, speaks of 

 the inhabitants as a peaceful people, and their primitive weapons would also 

 indicate that they were not of a warlike disposition. From this it might be 

 inferred that tliey devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits. McKinnen, 

 in his " Tour of the West Indies," says that he passed by " successive heaps 

 of loose stones thrown together by the aborigines, who, it is supposed, had 

 begun to cultivate the ground pretty extensively." They cultivated some 

 species of grain, in all likelihood maize, and probably cotton also, for Colum- 



