AGASSIZ : BAHAMAS. 67 



which stretches to the southeastern extremity of Bahama Island on 

 one side, and to Little Abaco on the other. On the interior of the 

 bank the west face of Great Abaco runs at many points close to the east- 

 ern shore of the island, leaving only low, narrow ridges connecting the 

 various parts of this singular island (Plate X. Fig. 1). On examining 

 the chart, one cannot fail to be struck with the endless islets and pas- 

 sages which have been left on the east coast of Abaco as records of the 

 subsidence of the bank, and the numerous cays which flank the western 

 edge of the bank between Eocky Point and the southeastern end of 

 Bahama Island, while the many cays found upon the shallow interior 

 bank attest the former extension of the Abaco Bahama Island Land. 

 The Little Bahamas are perhaps a finer example than even Andros 

 can be of the former greater extension of the land, and of the causes 

 which have resulted in the present configuration of the group. 



The Abaco Bahama Island Land, which once covered the greater 

 part of the Little Bahama Bank, and probably corresponded in outline 

 approximately with the line of ten fathoms, was exposed at its north- 

 western face to the violent action of the northers. They have eaten 

 away the whole of the northern face of Bahama Island, leaving only 

 Memory Rock and the banks to the north as witnesses of its former 

 extension. On the north face of the Little Bahama Bank the patches 

 forming Middle Shoal, Matanilla Beef, and the long line of outer cays, 

 give us approximately the outline of the former Little Bahama Land, 

 of which Little Abaco and the cays extending to the westward to the 

 Centre of the World are remnants, these remnants being in turn the 

 outliers of Great Abaco before it became disintegrated by the action of 

 the northers, when it was perhaps only separated by a narrow channel 

 from Bahama Island. Of course, as soon as a wide channel was formed 

 to the north of Bahama Island or to the westward of Abaco, the action 

 of the northeast trades also came into play to cut away the low shores 

 of these islands, thus helping to increase rapidly the dimensions of the 

 bank. 



But what has made the shape of the banks such as they are, and what 

 has shaped the outline of the old land in so absolute conformity to what 

 we may reasonably assume to have been their original outline 1 



As far as the shape of the Windward Islands is concerned, we can still 

 see the action of the volcanic forces which have elevated islands of very 

 different shapes and different sizes above the bottom of the surrounding 

 ocean, — islands which are separated one from the other by channels of 

 very varying depths, and round which have been formed on one face or 



