AGASSIZ; BAHAMAS. 25 



New Providence to Northern Eleuthera. 



Plate X. Figs. 2, 3 ; Plate XI. Fig. 5 ; Plate XXXII. 



On passing out of Nassau Harbor, making toward Douglas Channel, 

 we obtained the first view of the peculiar aspect presented by the low 

 seolian hill ranges forming the outer islands of the Bahama Bank. As 

 we passed to the seaward of Hog Island we obtained an excellent view 

 also of the sand beaches which form the western part of the island. 

 Similar longer or shorter sand beaches extend throughout the Bahamas 

 on the sea faces of such islands as are more or less protected by outside 

 rocks, outlying islets, or banks or bars, from which the material for the 

 inner beaches is worn away by the action of the sea and thrown up on 

 the surface of the inner island. The sand beaches may also be formed 

 from the disintegration of the more gentle slopes on the sea face of the 

 seolian rocks of the inner islands. 



As seen from the sea, the outline of the outer islands is most charac- 

 teristic. Seen slightly obliquely, such an island as Rose Island, for 

 instance, seems made up of a series of solidified dunes falling one over 

 another. Rose Island is a long narrow island, the highest point of which 

 is not more than thh'ty to forty feet above the sea level, of about twelve 

 miles in length. One might readily imagine from the distant outline 

 that the whole mass of the island was moving bodily to the westward, in 

 a series of low sand waves, under the influence of the prevailing winds. 

 Rose Island is parallel to the range of islands of which Hog Island may 

 be called the centre. Long Cay and North Cay form the western exten- 

 sion, while Athol Island makes the eastern extension. Pai-allel to Rose 

 Island are Salt Cay to the west and Booby Island to the east, — the 

 remains, perhaps, of the range of seolian hills which formed the very edge 

 of the northern part of the bank to the eastward of Nassau, very much 

 as Egg and Royal Islands are the remnants of the ranges of the north- 

 eastern points of the bank. 



Rose Island is perhaps one of the most characteristic of the Bahama 

 Islands. It consists of a single narrow ridge of seolian rocks, extend- 

 ing for twelve miles along the edge of the bank. In continuation of it, 

 on the other side of Douglas Channel, is Booby Island, a very simi- 

 lar ridge. Rose Island is a low range of seolian hills, similar to those 

 now running across New Providence ; it has become isolated by the sub- 

 sidence, erosion, and destruction of the land of which it once formed a 



