34 ISLES OF SUMMEE. 



South-east of Long Island, beyond the Great Bank, and 

 separated from it by a channel twenty-five miles wide, is Crooked 

 Island ; then succeeds Acklin's Island, with a very shallow con- 

 necting channel, once reputed fordable in its narrowest i^art. 

 To the north-east of Crooked Island is Sumona, or Atwood Key. 

 Plana or French keys are east of Acklin's Island. Tlien successive- 

 ly follow in the same direction (south-east), the Caicos, the Maya- 

 guana and the Turks Islands — the last of this inhabited chain 

 of islands, six hundred miles in extent, which stretch from a point 

 seventy miles from Florida to within a hundred miles of St. 

 Domingo. The Caicos and the Turks Islands once were Avithin 

 the governmental jurisdiction of the Bahamas, but are now po- 

 litically associated with Jamaica. 



Three smaller banks, separated by channels thirty to fifty 

 miles wide, and called respectively Mouchoir, Carre, Silver and 

 Navidad, extend still further to the south-east, for about one 

 hundred and fifty miles. 



Nearly in the latitude of the Turks Islands, and from sixty 

 to seventy miles south of Acklin's Island and Mayaguana, are 

 Great and Little Inagua or Ileneagua, detached, and some sixty- 

 five miles north of the north-western extremity of St. Domingo. 

 Great Inagua is one of the largest and best of the Bahamas. 

 Exuma, with its extensive chain of keys, lies uj^on the eastern 

 edge of the Great Bank, and upon the western side of Exuma 

 Sound. This Sound has an average width of forty miles, ex- 

 tends north-westerly about one hundred miles, and breaks the 

 continuity of the Great Bank between St. Salvador and Long 

 Island. 



A very deep sound called The Tongue-of-the-Ocean is pro- 

 jected into the Great Bank a distance of one hundred and ten 

 miles. Major General Nelson, R. E., describes it as having the 

 deep blue color of oceanic depths, while **tlie color of the water 



