Dr. Maycock oti the Geology of Barbadoes. 17 



where, notwithstanding the land is low, the minerals of Scot- 

 land, clay and gypsum, are thrown up against the calcareous 

 cliffs ; bat immediately round the point, on the south-eastern 

 coast, these minerals are wanting, and the precipitous calcareous 

 cliffs appear bare and undermined by the waters of the ocean. 



It cannot l^e doubted by any naturalist, that the calcareous 

 formation, of which the body of this island consists, has ori- 

 ginated in the submarine operations of insects belonging to the 

 order of Zoophytes, and that the various modifications of car- 

 bonate of lime by which the corallines are cemented, have been 

 derived from these substances, acted on by water. The island, 

 however, which was once so undeniably under the surface of 

 the ocean, now rises considerably above it. To what cause are 

 we to attribute this difference of relative height ? Has the land 

 been elevated, or have the waters subsided? 



It is not my intention to enter into the gfeneral discussion, 

 to which this question might naturally lead. It will be sufficient 

 to observe, with a reference to the subject under consideration, 

 that although the calcareous formation of this island exhibits 

 various rents and dislocations, some of these have taken place 

 in the memory of man, and they can all be fully accounted 

 for as the effects of earthquakes, inundations, and such like 

 phaenomena of nature, without having recourse to so violent 

 a convulsion as the elevation of the island from the bosom 

 of the ocean ; and in so far as we may be guided by the ap- 

 pearances of the flat district, there is no reason to suppose that 

 such a catastrophe ever took place. 



In respect to the argillaceous minerals forming the hilly dis- 

 trict, their uniformly regular occurrence on the north-eastern 

 side of the island, and their obtaining heights proportioned to 

 the calcareous cliffs, situate to the westward, and to which they 

 are opposed, very clearly demonstraie that they have been depo- 

 sited under the influence of a current setting from a north-east 

 point, which, while the deposition was taking place in the pro- 

 tected hollow, and similar situations, would wash freely down 

 the inclined surface of the other parts of the island those loose 

 materials which may antecedently have been accumulated 

 Vol... XI. C 



