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bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



The subsidence and erosion of the island have formed an extensive har- 

 bor at the northeastern end, hemmed in on all sides by islands and islets, 

 leaving a couple of passages to the northeast of Green Cay into Graham 

 Harbor. Fringing this harbor, and following its outline in from three to six 

 fathoms of watei-, extensive patches of corals are met with which form to 

 the eastward a more or less continuous coral reef, with an inner protected 

 passage for boats and smaller vessels along the whole of that face of the 

 island. These independent patches of corals are also found on the west 

 coast, as at Riding Rocks, but are not so continuous as on the east coast. 

 The corals forming these patches are the common West Indian species 

 of Madrepores, Mseandrina, Astrseans, and Orbicellas, with Flabellum as 

 the most common of the Gorgonians. Sailing round Graham Harbor, we 

 followed a course parallel to the eastern shore. The outer reef shelters 

 the long sand beaches fairly well, and the former outline of the island 

 was such that there are but few vertical bluffs on the windward side of 

 the island. The highest hills are on this eastern side, one rising to the 

 southward of the lighthouse, its sea face forming the white bluffs which, 

 according to Captain Becher of the Royal Navy, flanked the beach where 



LANDING PLACE OF COLUMBUS, ACCORDING TO CAPTAIN BECHER, B. N. 



Columbus first landed, while the spurs from Fortune Hill nearer the 

 southern end of the island extend to the sea and form the white cliffs 

 which according to Sir Henry Blake flanked to the north of Columbus 

 Bight the spot where Columbus first landed in the New World. The 



LANDFALL OF COLUMBUS, ACCORDING TO SIR HENRY BLAKE. 



beach at the northeast end of the island is so entirely shut out by 

 patches of coral reefs that it would have been impossible for Columbus to 

 have anchored at the spot which Becher assigns as his anchorage. Our 

 pilot says no sponger ever dares to anchor there ; while farther south, 

 at Columbus Bight, the spot selected by Sir Henry Blake, there is a 

 small reef harbor where boats of the size of the caravels could readily 



