654 FROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Nov.y 



AN ECOLOGICAL SKETCH OF THE FLOKA OF SANTO DOMINGO 

 BY JOHN W. HARSHBERGER, PH.D. 



The it-land of Santo Domingo (Hispaiiola of Columbus) is 

 politically divided into an eastern and a western portion. The 

 eastern section, by far the largest, comprises the Republic of 

 Santo Domingo, and the western area, the smallest, is dominated 

 by the blacks of the Haitian Republic. The island of Santo 

 Domingo is one of extreme fertility. Columbus, and travelers 

 since, speak in the highest terms of the rare beauty and natural 

 grandeur of the island, which has been called without exaggera- 

 tion " The Queen of the Antilles." 



Topography. 



Hispanola by nature is the geographic centre of the Greater 

 Antilles. Thomas Jefferys in 1760 said: " Its situation with 

 respect to the rest of the Antilles is the most advantageous imag- 

 inable, as it stands, you may say, in the centre of this great cluster 

 of islands, and looks as if intended by nature to give laws to 

 them. The other three great Antilles lie in such a manner as to 

 prove its superiority, and their own dependence; for it has three 

 points of land corresponding respectively to each island " (Puerto 

 Rico, Cuba, Jamaica). Santo Domingo excels Puerto Rico, Cuba 

 and Jamaica in altitude, diversity of configuration, picturesque 

 aspect and natural fertility. It is continental in its topographic 

 make-up, being the radiating centre of the great Antillean uplift. 

 The outline of Hispanola is the most irregular of all the Greater 

 Antilles, its periphery being nearly a thousand miles, its length 

 400 miles, and its breadth 160 miles. The great Gulf of Gonaives 

 is enclosed by the western peninsulas, and is an immense semicircu- 

 lar bay with a coast line of two hundred miles. Samana Bay on 

 the northeast, Barahona Bay on the south coast and ^lanzanilla 

 Bay on the north are also conspicuous indentations. Approached 

 from the ocean, the island presents a huge mass of mountains 



