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TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



[Vol. V. 



(see Fig. 2, Plate II.). The character of the embayments referred to^ 

 is that of valleys surrounded by highlands, and which rapidly increase 

 from less than a mile to five or ten in width, where several streams 

 have their valleys united before leaving the plateau district. 



These reentrant valleys have been largely broadened by the rains 

 and small streams entering the rivers, which mostly act as carriers 

 of the debris ofif the land, for they have almost reached their base^ 

 levels of erosion, the floors of which are gently undulating plains 

 The location of these embayments is independent of the orographic 

 structure of the district, at times occupying the hollows in the mountain 

 folds, and again crossing them at all angles. Fragments of gradation 

 plains terminating abruptly at high elevations, suggest that the plateau 

 mass of the interior has been elevated since the excavation of the 

 valleys at lower base levels. The valleys indenting the fnountain mass 



Figure 3. — Plan of a low base-level valley indenting the margins of the highlands of Clarendon Parish, 



which is illustrated in Figure 3, bear a close resemblance to the sub- 

 marine embayments, with the same character of floors as shown off 

 Kingston and Savanna la Mar, where the sea is now from two thousand 

 to over four thousand feet deep, with the submerged plateaus extending 

 to Haiti on the east, and to Honduras on the west, having much the 

 same depth, although traversed by deeper channels, but with the 

 higher portions of the drowned plateaus having the appearance of old 



