1897.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 109 



there, however, has converted many of the sinks into bays, re- 

 moving the wall on one side, making it a ' flat,' covered at low 

 tide to the depth of from a few inches to several feet. 



An interesting series of sinks lies close to the south shore from 

 Tuckerlown bay, itself a breached sink, to Warwick parish. 

 Those nearest Tuckertown are large but reach only to within three 

 or four feet of the water; beyond them, however, are Trott and 

 Basden ponds, the former nearly one-fourth of a mile each way 

 and the latter twice as large, with the depth of water said to ex- 

 ceed ten feet At several points the sinks are less than an eighth 

 of a mile from the ocean with the separating ridge less than twenty 

 feet high. Peniston's pond, two-thirds of a mile long, is but a 

 few feet from the shore and, during severe storms, the waves pour 

 over the low wall in a continuous cascade. The long narrow 

 depression holding this pond extends almost to Smith parish 

 church, where it passes gradually into another, which for more 

 than half a mile is a swamp and near Harris's baj' is at but a few 

 rods from the shore ; just beyond the road leading to Devonshire 

 bay, this in turn passes into a succession of sinks separated by 

 such low divides that they appear to be continuous. These end 

 at the edge of Paget parish, where a divide of barely thirtj'-five 

 feet separates them from a similar series in Paget as well as from 

 the head of Hamilton harbor. 



The great swamps in Devonshire and Pembroke parishes differ 

 from the sinks just mentioned only in respect of size. The 

 Devonshire marsh is more than a mile long and in some places 

 one-fourth of a mile vvido, while the Pembroke marsh is more 

 extensive and almost continuous with the marsh and bay of 

 Mangrove creek. Besides these are many sinks, not marshy, in 

 all stages of formation, from a few inches to forty feet above tide 

 at the bottom and containing rich soil 3 ielding excellent crops. 



The divides separating the sinks seldom rise higher than forty 

 feet and frequently the elevation is much less. The sides of the 

 depressions are less abrupt than are those of regions where the 

 rock is hard, so that at thirt}' or forty feet above tide the area 

 of the basins is often twice as great as at ten feet. 



But the sinks give by no means a full conception of the extent 

 to which material has been removed. The land is honeycombed 

 everywhere. Around Hamilton bay and the Great sound, one 

 sees many openings into caverns, some of which must be very 

 large ; Castle harbor and Harrington sound show the same con- 

 dition. There is communication between many of the ponds 

 and the sea, for fish and crayfish find their way into them. Har- 

 rington sound, being practicall}' landlocked, has a tide of but a 

 few inches, whereas Castle harbor, open to the sea, has a tide 



