AGASSIZ : BAHAMAS. 81 



rocks opposite one of the gaps in the reef and in the outer line of 

 rocky cays, giving the sea full swing to throw up the fragments of the 

 aeolian cliffs as they become broken off. 



The east face of Lynyard Cay is low and worn into low cliffs. In 

 the background can be seen the pine forests of Great Abaco rising be- 

 hind Tilloo Cay Sound. The last of the outer islets we were near enough 

 to examine made the northern spit of the entrance to Cheroki Sound, 

 while Ocean Hill, a promontory of Great Abaco, formed the opening to 

 Little Harbor to the south of Lynyard Cay. As we lost Great Abaco, 

 the eastern face of which is no longer protected by outlying islands, we 

 could see the comparatively high vertical cliffs extending southward in 

 a nearly unbroken line to the point which we had seen on our first 

 reaching the island north of the Hole in the Wall. 



SALT CAY BANK. 



Plates I. and XXXI. 



Before describing the banks to the eastward of the Great Bahama 

 Bank I will give a short account of Salt Cay Bank, the westernmost of 

 the three banks lying on the eastern edge of the Gulf Stream. Salt 

 Cay Bank is triangular, with rounded angles, its greatest width being 

 about forty miles and its length nearly sixty. It lies at the western 

 opening of the Old Bahama Channel, the forks of which, separating the 

 bank from the Great Bahama Bank and Cuba, are known as the Santaren 

 and the Nicholas Channels. In general, Salt Cay Bank resembles more 

 the Crooked Island and Caicos Banks, and has reached a condition in- 

 termediate between them and the Mouchoir and Silver Banks. There 

 remain on the edge of Salt Cay Bank fewer islets and rocks than along 

 the Crooked Island and Caicos Banks, but they have not disappeared 

 so as to leave mere rocks awash, as upon the edge of Mouchoir and Silver 

 Banks. 



Salt Cay Bank has been described by Professor Agassiz in his Report 

 to the Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey for 1851, and 

 republished in the Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 

 Having visited the Florida Keys first and Salt Cay next, he naturally 

 extended his explanation of the formation of the Florida Keys to all the 

 cays of Salt Cay Bank. The structure of Salt Cay is, I believe, however, 

 radically different from that of the other cays of the bank which I visited. 

 vol. xxvi. — no. 1. 6 



