106 THREE CRUISES OF THE * BLAKE." 
southward, having also a much gentler slope, and forming the 
edge of the Pedro Rosalind Bank, the extension of the Hon- 
duras Mosquito coast, which divides the Caribbean into an east- 
ern and western basin. After passing the Pedro Rosalind 
Bank, — the divide between the Western and Eastern Carib- 
bean, — one comes into the valley of the Grand Cayman, the 
eastern extremity of which is flanked on the one side by the 
Blue Mountains of Jamaica, on the other by the coast range 
of Southern Cuba, the highest summits of which rise fully 
twenty-seven thousand feet above the deepest point of “ Bart- 
lett Deep," — the extension of the Cuban side of the valley 
being formed by peaks, often rising to over twenty thousand feet 
from the bottom of the valley. Compared to such panoramas 
the finest views of the range of the Alps sink into insignifi- 
cance; it is only when we can get a view of portions of the 
Andes from the sea-coast, or such a panorama as one has from 
Darjiling, facing the Kinchinjinga range, which towers fully 
twenty-six thousand feet above the level of the valley at its base, 
that we get anything approximating to it in grandeur. 
As it ат been the practice with geotriephers to name the 
highest peaks of our mountain chains after distinguished. ex- 
ploreis; so it has become the custom of lipdnegsdpidre to name 
the deepest parts of the oceans after distinguished hydrogra- 
phers. Sigsbee Deep in the Gulf of Мехібо; Bartlett Deep 
in the 5а Caribbean, Thomson Deep and those of Nares, 
the “ Challenger," Pourtalés, Patterson, Hilgard, and others, 
have been named in connection with recent deep-sea hydro- 
graphy. 
'The monotony, dreariness, and. desolation of the deeper parts 
of this submarine scenery can scarcely be realized. The most 
barren terrestrial districts must seem. diversified when compared 
with the vast expanse of ooze which covers the deeper parts of 
the ocean, — a monotony only relieved by the fall of the dead 
carcasses of pelagic animals and plants, which slowly find their 
way from the surface to the bottom, and supply the principal 
food for the scanty fauna found living there. 
Nearer to the continental masses we find the slopes inhab- 
ited by a more abundant and more varied fauna, increasing in 
