AGASSIZ: BAHAMAS. 21 



and erosion have been changed into the narrow channels separating the 

 outlying ca}'s from the main island of New Providence. In some in- 

 stances there has been an accumulation of recent shore coral rocks, 

 flanking the hills and overlying the lower part of the older aeolian rocks. 

 Beyond the shore flat we cross Prospect Hill, then a second and third 

 range of low seolian hills, and then we come upon the sink which forms 

 Lake Cunningham (Plate X. Fig. 3). This lake fills a long valley, with 

 its sides flanked by mangroves and with a few mangrove islands scat- 

 tered on its sm-face. The water is slightly brackish. The vegetation out- 

 side of the mangrove belt runs into the characteristic Bahamian plants, 

 most conspicuous among which is the so called grape tree (Plate XX.). 



After passing the range of Prospect Hill, we come upon large tracts of 

 pines, and in the hollows and valleys between the hills, where there is 

 more moisture, we find a richer soil, there being more red earth in the 

 decayed amygduloidal aeolian rocks. In these low marshes and flats we 

 find a peculiar flora, — a mixture of pines and groves of palmettos quite 

 similar in character to the woods in some parts of Florida (Plate XIX.). 

 In fact, with the exception that the country is more rolling, one might 

 imagine the scene, by its clusters of palmettos and tall pines, to be laid 

 there ; while in the more open spaces, where the forests have been 

 burned off, whole tracts are covered with bayonet palms and magnificent 

 brushes of young pines. 



The road running west as far as Cave Point is more or less parallel 

 with the coast, and is flanked on each side with low bushes; but the 

 principal shrub is the grape tree. Further inland the slopes of the hills 

 are covered with larger growths, and on the flats between the prolonga- 

 tion of the hills, especially in the space formed by the extension of 

 the valley in which Lake Cunningham lies, we meet fine clusters of pal- 

 mettos and tracts of pine. 



The spurs of the shore hills extending in a northwesterly direction 

 form more or less prominent spits nearly perpendicular to the shore line, 

 according to the hardness of the rocks and their exposure to the action 

 of the sea. The cave from which Cave Point derives its name is an old 

 vertical cliff, which is now separated from the shore by a narrow belt of 

 coral shore rocks which have been thrown against the aeolian cliffs, and 

 have formed also the small flat flanking the southerly extension of the 

 spur of which Cave Point is the northern end. The cave differs in no 

 way from the many similar caves which exist throughout the Bahamas. 

 The cave is from twenty to twenty-five feet wide, and perhaps ten to 

 fifteen deep in places. 



