AGASSIZ: BAHAMAS. 69 



swampy shores of the western side of Great Abaco. These sand bores 

 also extend in a northerly direction from Mores Island to the saud bores 

 east of Burrow Cay. In crossing the bank from Mores Island to the 

 Woollendean Cays, we carried from one and a half to two fathoms of 

 water, and before reaching the cays had struck the territory of the so 

 called marl of the Little Bahamas. It seems to have been formed under 

 very much the same conditions as those which have formed the great 

 Avhite marl flats to the west of Andros ; but the Woollendean Cays and 

 the Joe Downer Cays being the remnant of a land rather higher than 

 that on the west shore of Andros, this marl is not so pure, and contains 

 a greater amount of vegetable matter derived from the decomposition 

 of a larger amount of soil. 



When off Rocky Point we could easily follow with the eye the changes 

 which had perhaps taken place in the configuration of the west side of 

 Abaco. To the east stretched the low coast of the island itself, covered 

 with a dense forest of pines, and deeply indented by channels which 

 seemed, as seen from the rigging, to cut the shore line into numerous 

 islets. To the westward extends a low rocky spit, and still farther west 

 rocky cays are found on the edge of the bank, — the outliers of the 

 former Abaco. Gorda Cay, the summit of which is covered by a regular 

 picket line of angular ceolian rocks, attests the strength of the hurri- 

 canes which have gradually eaten away the greater part of the west 

 shore of Abaco ; while farther inland Mores Island and the Woollendean 

 Cays, reolian islands rising upon the shallow interior bank, indicate the 

 action which has gradually reduced the western part of Great Abaco to 

 its present dimensions. Long Cay Rocks and other small cays south of 

 Mores Island are bare, like Gorda Cay, though often topped here and 

 there like the latter by a wall of loose rocks thrown up during the hurri- 

 cane season. There is excellent sponging on the interior of the bank, 

 The bank is entered by a good passage a little north of Mores Island, and 

 in that way the west coast of Great Abaco can be reached. We anchored 

 in Rock Harbor, on the west coast of Abaco, after having visited the 

 Woollendean Islands and the marl district of the Little Bahamas. 



Burrow Cay is low, not more than twenty feet in height, with vertical 

 cliffs on the channel side. A long row of angular eeolian blocks is thrown 

 up on the western face of the island to a height of about fifteen feet 

 above high-water mark. On the western extremity a small low rocky 

 cay protects the northern shore of the island from the action of the 

 northers. On the northern shore there is a short stretch of recent 

 shore coral rock, masses of Xullipores, of Gorgonians, of corals, and 



