356 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



St. Kitts. From St. Kitts there is a weekly schooner to St. Martin, 

 Anguilla and Sombrero, from St. Martin a fortnightly schooner to St. 

 Bartholomew and Guadeloupe ; from St. Martin to Saba and Curacao 

 sails a monthly schooner. At St. Martin the Quebec Steamship Line 

 calls about once a month on the outward passage from New York. 



Anguilla has practically no exports and is a very poor island, the 

 negroes living on " ground " provisions (tubers), some fruits, etc. St. 

 Martin formerly produced sugar, but this industry has almost disap- 

 peared. Some cattle are raised for export, but the salt production is 

 now the principal source of wealth. The few thousand people of these 

 islands are almost entirely black or coloured, with only a few whites, 

 mostly the descendants of the planters of slave days. But many of the 

 old families have disappeared. English is the language spoken in the 

 Dutch portion of St. Martin, but it is also generally understood on the 

 French side of the island and in St. Bartholomew, whose inhabitants are 

 largely of French origin. Before leaving this subject, I wish to express 

 my very high appreciation of the Honorable Diedric C. Van Romondt> 

 K.N.O., and formerly Governor, and his family, and to thank them for 

 the princely hospitality shown to Mrs. Spencer and myself, such as 

 characterized the palmy days of the West Indies. His charming 

 suburban home is in the beautiful valley of Cul de Sac, opposite 

 the highest point of the island, both of which may be seen in figure i,. 

 Plate I. 



The St. Kitts Chain, Montserrat and the Saba Banks. 



Here we find three elevated remnants of the dissected Antillean 

 plateau rising up as tablelands to 3,000 feet or more above the floor of 

 the drowned valleys. But the channels separating them have a 

 depth of 15 to 100 feet below the surface of the sea. On 

 the St. Kitts remnant, St. Eustacia, St. Kitts itself and Nevis 

 rise as the mountainous back-bone of the region, with the Saba 

 banks, as a slightly submerged coastal plain, to the south. (See 

 map, Plate A, appended). Montserrat is a repetition of the central 

 mass. Saba is simply an extinct volcanic cone, rising precipitously 

 from the floor of the sunken Antillean ridge, but at the foot of 

 a submarine tableland now forming the Saba banks. Its height 

 above the sea is 2,830 feet, with the water 2,250 feet or more in depth. 

 On the floor of an extinct crater, at the height of several hundred feet, is 

 perched the town of Bottom. It is a small Dutch settlement where the 

 inhabitants are engaged in boat building, or as mariners. 



