244 APPENDIX. 



To the south, the land in general is poor, and of a reddish 

 hue; and the same extends over a considerable part of 

 the interior counSry." 



ISLAND OF Sx\INT CHRISTOPHER. 



VOL. I. BOOK III — PAGE 429. 



" The interior part of the country consists of many 



rugged precipices and barren mountains. Of these, the 

 loftiest is Mount Misery (evidently :i decayed 'volcano) v^^hicli 



rises 37 ii feet in perpendicular height from the sea. 

 Nature, however, has made abundant amends for the 

 sterility of the mountains, by the fertility she has bestow- 

 ed upon the plains. No part of the West Indies, that I have 

 seen, possesses even the same species of soil that is found 

 in Saint Christopher's ; it is in general a dark grey loam, so 

 light and porous as to be penetrable by the slightest ap- 

 plication of the hoe, and I conceive it to be the produc- 

 tion of subterraneous Jires, the black ferruginous pumice of 

 naturalists, finely incorporated with a pure loam of virgin 

 mould. The imdcr stratum is gravel, from eight to 

 twelve inches deep. Clay is no where found except at a 

 considerable height in the mountains. By what process 

 of nature the soil which I have mentioned, becomes- 



more 



