AGASSIZ: BAHAMAS. 73 



From Bahama Island to Memory Rock. 



Plate X. Fig. 1 ; Plate XXXIX. 



Bahama Island forms the southern face of the northwestern shank of 

 the Little Bahama Bank. It is sixty-five miles in length, but not more 

 than six to seven miles in width. It is low, covered with a thick forest 

 of pine. It may be fifty to sixty feet at its highest point, to the east 

 of High Rock. The high ridge runs close to the south shore, and on 



pill! 



HIGH ROCK, BAHAMA ISLAND. 



crossing this we come upon the level stretch sloping gently north to the 

 northern shore. Its southeastern extremity is broken into numerous 

 low cays, and the north shore, which has not been surveyed, appears, 

 as far as could be seen from the rigging, to be made up of innumerable 

 low wooded (pine) cays running east of Settlement Point. 



The highest cliffs we saw were at High Rock, where there is a small 

 settlement, but even there the cliffs are not more than from twelve to 

 twenty feet. In the vicinity of High Rock, to the eastward of Gold 

 Rock, where we anchored, we had an excellent opportunity to see the 

 barrier reef growing upon the submarine extension of the shore eeolian 

 rocks. The reef where we anchored is in about four fathoms of water. 

 We dropped our anchor in an open space between patches of fine heads 

 of Porites, of magnificent huge clusters of Madrepora palmata and colos- 

 sal heads of Mfeandrinae and Astrseans, many of them overgrown by 

 splendid Millepoi-es. Inside the reef, towards the shore, the sheltered 

 waters were filled with patches of large Gorgonians and isolated coral 

 heads. The distance from the 5 fathom line to the shore line is neai'ly 

 a mile. Inside of this the coral heads were not very numerous, except 

 in the lines where they formed spurs reaching to the shore of Ba- 

 hama Island, constituting an incipient fringing reef. The shore aeolian 

 rocks are well protected, except at such places as High Rock, by the 

 barrier reef running parallel with the shore line of the island. Back 

 of the beach the highest point cannot be more than ten to twelve feet. 

 The surface of the exposed rocks is more or less watei'-worn from the 



