On entering the harbor of San Juan, the ship passes close to El Morro ("The Castle"), an old fortress at 

 the western end of the city 



Porto Rico 



By HENRY E. CRAMPTON 



THE island of Porto Rico undoubt- 

 edly surpasses all other regions 

 of equal size — certainly of the 

 New World — in the variety and num- 

 ber of its features that arouse vivid 

 interest. The extent of the island is not 

 great, for its irregular oblong mass is 

 only one hundred miles in length and 

 about thirty-five miles in breadth, or 

 approximately three times as large as 

 Long Island; yet its inhabitants number 

 more than 1,200,000, thus making it 

 more thickly populated than any other 

 equivalent area in the Western Hemi- 

 sphere, excepting certain portions of 

 New England. Its place in history is 

 a large one, for since its discovery by 

 Columbus in 1493, it has served as the 

 battle ground of Spanish, Dutch, and 

 English, and as a haven for the buc- 

 caneers who operated throughout the 

 Spanish Main. Even in purely scien- 

 tific respects it commands the interest 

 of many a department of investigation, 



because its different portions display un- 

 usually varied geological and topographi- 

 cal characters. They also support well 

 diversified forms of plant and animal 

 life, whose study is especially important 

 on account of the island's value as a 

 link in the Antillean chains that connect 

 North and South America with each 

 other and with Mexico. Hence the prob- 

 lems of evolution, distribution and mi- 

 gration, of human beings as well as of 

 organic forms in general, are particularly 

 well defined and engaging in the case of 

 Porto Rico.^ 



1 For these and other reasons, the New York Academy 

 of Sciences has undertaken a prolonged and compre- 

 hensive survey of the island, for which it has gained 

 the support of the Insular Government and active 

 participation on the part of the New York Botanical 

 Gardens, the American Museum of Natural History, 

 and other institutions. More than a score of investi- 

 gators have already taken the field for work in anthro- 

 pology, botany, geology, pateontology, and zoology 

 As one of these, I have twice visited Porto Rico, and 

 have become somewhat familiar with the delightful 

 scenes with which the present brief article is concerned. 

 — The Author. 



59 



