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



plains before reaching the sea. A similar flood, though not so severe, 

 yet drowning many people, occurred in Montserrat during my stay on 

 a neighbouring island. These floods give some idea of the very rapid 

 changes in the physical features of this tropical region. But in addi- 

 tion the Atlantic ocean is encroaching upon the eastern sides of all 

 the islands, owing to the waves being thus driven by the north-eastern 

 trade winds. Accordingly, almost all the ports are upon the leeward 

 sides of the islands. In St. Kitts, there are wild monkeys, but they 

 belong to an African species, and it is not known who imported 

 them. 



Nevis is a nearly circular island radiating from a volcanic dome 

 which rises to an altitude of 3,596 feet. It is nearly always wrapped in 

 a cloud, like the summit of Mount Misery in St. Kitts. Its sloping 

 surfaces are similar to those of St. Kitts, of which it is now a political 

 dependency, though formerly the more important. In the seventeenth 

 century there were several thousand white settlers who were forced to 

 leave owing to the concentration of the lands into the hands of a few 

 owners. Now the whites are few and poor. Here was born Alexander 

 Hamilton, one of the fathers of the American republic. So also the wife 

 of Lord Nelson, who, at his marriage here, was attended by Prince 

 William (afterwards King William IV.), as best man. The island is 

 separated from St. Kitts by a strait only a few miles wide, and very 

 shallow. 



The old eruptive foundation of these islands belonged to the very 

 beginning of the Tertiary era, or to a little earlier geological time. Dur- 

 ing the Miocene, and until about the close of the Pliocene period, 

 this region was a land surface, and no formations were accumu- . 

 lated beneath the sea. But in the Pleistocene period a most interesting 

 phenomenon occurred. A volcanic upheaval raised Brimstone hill on 

 the flanks of St. Kitts to a height of about 700 feet, without having pro- 

 duced a crater. (See view, figure i, Plate IV.). In the outburst, the 

 floor of the sea was thrust up so that a limestone veneer, about thirty 

 feet thick, covers the sides of the hill, which is about half a mile in 

 diameter, to a height of 400 feet, on which a strong fort was formerly 

 raised. The formation thus lifted up contains fossils which show that it 

 was formed at the close of the Pliocene or beginning of the Pleistocene 

 period. The same phenomenon was repeated twelve miles away in 

 Statia (see figure i, Plate II.), but there the limestone mantle occurs to 

 a height of over 900 feet, and on the summit a well preserved crater was 

 formed. 



