AGASSIZ : BAHAMAS. 91 



The Crooked Island Bank. 



Plate IX. Figs. 1, 9; Plate X. Fig. 4; Plates XXXVII. and XXXYIII. 



The most westerly of the smaller outlying banks of the Bahamas is 

 the Crooked Island Bank, which is triangular in shape. Its northern 

 side is about thirty miles long, its eastern face forty, and the western 

 forty-eight miles. The bank slopes very gradually towards its western 

 and southern edge. The 100 fathom line runs close to the edge of the 

 bank along the sea face of both Crooked and Acklin Islands, as well as to 

 the west face of Fortune. This and Caicos Bank are, as it were, epitomes 

 of the Great Bahama Bank, representing on a small scale the charac- 

 teristic physical features of the Bahamas. Fortune Island forms the 

 western edge of the bank, Crooked Island the northern, and Acklin 

 and Castle Island part of the northern and eastern face of the trian- 

 gular bank, which is open to the sea for the greater part of its western 

 side. The islands forming the outside edge of the bank are all narrow ; 

 both Crooked and Acklin Islands are somewhat wider than Fortune 

 Island, spreading out on the northern and western sides very gradually, 

 and passing into the shallow waters of the inner northeastern part of the 

 bank. From the western extremity of Crooked Island extends a wide 

 range of eeolian hills, the Blue Hills, occupying the central line of the 

 greater part of the island ; the summits reach a height of about two 

 hundred feet. Near the eastern end Mount Pisgah rises to two hundred 

 feet close to the shore. 



The whole northern face of the bank is edged by a coral reef extend- 

 ing from Northeast Breaker on Acklin Island to Bird Eock, where the 

 reef forms a well sheltered basin. About a mile from the northwest 

 point of Crooked Island is Portland Harbor, with three to four fathoms 

 of water. 



Acklin Island is separated from Crooked Island by a wide passage of 

 about two miles, but very shallow. The eastern face of the island is 

 skirted by a reef nearly continuous from Northeast Point to Castle 

 Island, beyond the southern extremity of Acklin Island. Castle Island 

 stands on the southern end of the Crooked Island Bank, and is about 

 two miles in length. On the northern and eastern sides of Acklin Isl- 

 and are a series of seolian hills lying along the eastern face, which 

 rise to a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet. Near the southern 

 extremity they are somewhat higher than those of Fortune Island. 



The west shore of Acklin, like the southern shore of Crooked Island, 



