THE HUMAN SPECIES. 87 



the unceasing action of the tropical current, labouring 

 in a gyration, which impels the Atlantic Sea, on the 

 north of the equator, and strengthened by the trade 

 wind, broke through the mountain barrier directly 

 opposed to it, perhaps not unaided by the collapsing 

 of the submarine galleries, or struck by some great sea 

 wave, rushing from the African or from the Azorean 

 regions, under the impulse of a mighty earthquake. 

 On examining the Windward Islands, the Grenadines, 

 between St. Vincent's and Grenada, point out where 

 the force of the current was most violent ; and the 

 rocky hills, from Tobago to beyond Curacoa, almost 

 always perpendicular on the north, and sloping to the 

 south, attest its continuity through the Carribbean Sea. 



WEST INDIES. 



THE Windward Islands are, in this view, only the 

 remains of a vast mountain chain, still impeding the 

 currents, sufficiently to produce a very considerable 

 difference in the sea levels between their east and west 

 coasts, or, as they are obviously checked, according 

 to their respective localities. Thus, in the port of 

 Havannah, the sea is thirty-six feet lower than at the 

 north side of Guadaloupe, according to the observations 

 of Jonnes, compared with those of Humboldt and F. de 

 Bellevue. If the great current were not restrained by 

 the islands, and by the coast of Yucatan turned into 

 the Florida Strait, the sea level at the isthmus of 



