1904-5. | THE GROWTH OF TRINIDAD. 141 
The next great fault is the one which divides the existing land of 
Trinidad from the formations which lie beneath the waves of the Caribean 
Sea. This lies somewhere near the line of the north coast. 
That dislocation which had probably the greatest share in producing 
the existing physical features of Trinidad is one which appears to begin 
to the westward of the lagoon of Guarapiche in Venezuela, passing through 
the Gulf of Paria and the Bocagrande and extending to the north-eastward 
between Tobago and Barbados on the east, and Grenada, St. Vincent and 
St. Lucia on the west. It was this dislocation that brought about the 
separation of Trinidad from Venezuela, forming the Gulf of Paria, and 
depressing the western side of the island, so that the pluvial waters of the 
country now called Caroni, Couva, Naparima, etc., instead of flowing as 
they formerly did in an easterly direction, now flow westward. The 
alluvial and oceanic tertiary deposits now became subject as a consequence 
of the increased gradient towards the sea-level to a highly destructive 
erosive action which carried off great portions of the strata, reducing 
them to less than half their former height, and with the material thus 
carried off, filling up what would have been a chasm nearly one thousand 
feet deep, so that the main body of the Gulf is nowhere a hundred feet in 
depth. 
Fig. 5- Rea thee cegnesee ‘ 
a” 
val 
Pregomart: 
oe ‘ny hola pliasane. 
Ancent Rocks TREES 
The diagram Fig. 5 shows the result of this dislocation in altering 
the conformation of the valleys of the Parian Range as I have shown in 
another part of this paper. Beginning at the western end of the island 
the submerged valleys, not less than the Gulf of Paria itself, are plain evi- 
dences of this depression. These valleys are obviously produced by sub- 
aerial denudation, though now sunk below the sea-level. The bocas them- 
selves had their origin as valleys through which flowed rivers from that 
ancient continent which formerly existed to the northward. ‘These val- 
leys after submergence have been greatly enlarged by the action of the 
sea, and the rapid currents flowing through them do not allow of the 
