138 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VIII. 
of ancient geological date. They traverse the entire width of the island, 
from the Islet of Chacachacare, on the west, to the north-eastern promon- 
tory, called Punta Galera. The main ridge has an elevation of 1,600 to 
2,500 feet. Several high peaks rise out of this ridge; the highest is said 
to be Tucuche, 3,000 feet, and the next, Aripo, 2,700 feet or more. In- 
deed it is probable as we have often surmised, that one or more of the Aripo 
summits exceed Tucuche in height. 
Our first view therefore, (see the diagram Figure 1), of the nascent 
Trinidad, is of a series of deposits under water, originating in the opera- 
tions of denudation upon an older land, the exact position of which is 
uncertain, but which for some reasons I surmise to have lain to the north- 
east, or in the direction of Tobago. That it was a large continent must be 
inferred from the fact of such an immense quantity of matter of such 
varying degrees of fineness and coarseness being deposited; probably many 
times the quantity we have now before us, as the quantity removed 
by denudation since the upheaval of the mass is obviously much more 
than what remains. 
The next phase in the development of the island, was the upheaval 
of these deposits above the level of the sea, and their gradual uplifting 
until they formed the mountain-chain we now call the Parian Range, the 
southern boundary of a continental mass of land extending perhaps as far 
in latitude as 12° or 14° North. No facts are known whence to infer the 
extent in longitude of this continent. It may have extended far to the 
eastward, and perhaps have been continuous with that ancient land now 
submerged, whence the materials of the Parian Range (the ‘‘Caribean 
Group’’) were derived. The extent northward of the continent is partly 
shown by the remains of it still existing in the shape of rocks, banks, 
shoals and islets in the southern part of the Caribean Sea. The land thus 
indicated was probably continental in the cretaceo-eocene period, while in 
earlier times the continent probably extended much further north. The 
great depth of the Caribean Sea is the principal fact that stands in the way 
of our speculations here, and until we can see how to account for this, we 
must be content to leave much unexplained. The elevation of the oceanic 
rocks of Barbados from a depth of more than a thousand feet below sea 
level, to more than a thousand feet above it, helps us easily to explain 
the condition of the shallower parts of the Caribean Sea, but when we come 
to depths of 6,000 to 15,000 feet in latitude 12°-13° North, we feel that 
our present resources in the way of evidence are insufficient to support 
the hypothesis of an Antillean continent in Latitude 12°-15° North. 
To the south of the Parian Range, the open ocean probably covered 
the whole of what is now the valleys of the Orinoko and the Amazons. 
