INTRODUCTION. 5 



it both a profitable and incumbent duty to institute a diligent 

 and persevering inquiry into the various causes which have induced 

 such results, and into the best means for remedying' the same, and 

 improving the condition of the emancipated colonies. For these 

 colonies are, by the progression of modern navigation, brought 

 nearer to Europe than they ever were, whilst contiguous to them 

 new markets are rising, viz., the United States, Canada, Nova 

 Scotia, and New Brunswick ; they still possess their fertile soils, 

 and their productive capabilities are unimpaired. When the great 

 Columbus sailed from Palos in search of the golden regions of 

 India and Cathay, he met them on his way ; and surely their 

 geographical position has not changed in our days. Ere many 

 years have elapsed, the land section of the great commercial 

 highway to Japan, China, and Australasia; to Oregon, California, 

 and the western shores of Mexico and Central America ; to 

 Ecuador, Peru, and Chili, will have been completed — thus 

 establishing a communication between the Pacific and that great 

 Mediterranean Sea of the New World which lies almost within 

 the lap of the Antilles. 



The numerous islands which form the Western Archipelago, 

 classed as the Great and Lesser Antilles, are scattered in the form 

 of a horse-shoe, along an arched line running eastward and 

 E.S.E., from the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, and then 

 curving southward to the mouth of the Orinoco, whence they 

 stretch westward along the northern coast of Venezuela, to the 

 eastern extremity of the Gulf of Maracaibo ; they lie between 

 10° and 27° N. latitude, and 60° and 85° W. longitude— the 

 greatest distance between any adjacent two of them being about 

 100 miles. 



By drawing a line from the Bay of Apalache, through Elorida, 

 to Point Galera in Trinidad, and another from Tampico in the 

 Gulf of Mexico, through Yucatan and the Mosquito country, to 

 the mouth of the Atrato, it is found that these two lines run very 

 nearly parallel, and that together with the southern coast of the 

 United States and the northern coast of South America — which 

 also end in a nearly parallel direction, they form an oblong, 

 which comprises within its limits the great Mediterranean Sea of 

 the West. This sea is completely land-locked on the N.W. and 

 S., whilst being bounded on the E. by the chain of the Antilles; 

 a great many outlets are left between these islands, extending as 

 they do over a space of 17° of latitude, or 1,200 miles. 



This vast inlet of the Atlantic consists of two distinct basins, 

 viz., the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The former is 

 nearly of a circular form, being shaped on the N.E. by the 

 western coast of Florida ; on the N. by the coasts of Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, in the United States; on the W. 



