AGASSIZ : BAHAMAS. 95 



The highest point of East Plana Cay is about seventy feet. On the north 

 side of West Cay the bank limited by the 100 fathom line extends about 

 two miles. 



Samana Cay is nine miles long and about a mile and a half broad. 

 Its surface is uneven, stated by Sir Henry Blake to be perfectly barren, 



Samana 

 or Attrood. Caj^ 



■~-"i& 



Lat. 23° 6' N. ; Long. 73° 40' W. 



and the most inhospitable looking of the islands. It attains a height 

 of one hundred feet. The narrow cay running nearly due east and 

 west is practically fringed by a coral reef, occasionally broken for its 

 whole length both on the north and south shores. 



The Caicos Bank. 



Plate I. ; Plate IX. Fig. 2. 



Caicos Bank is the largest of the eastern outlying Bahamas. Its out- 

 line is most irregular, extending sixty-four miles east and west and fifty- 

 eight north and south. The northern and the greater part of the eastern 

 face are edged with islands, all consisting of seolian rocks. 



The wearing away of the Caicos Bank has taken place on a propor- 

 tionally larger scale than on the Crooked Island Bank. The Caicos 

 Bank is protected from the northeast trades by a line of islands extend- 

 ing from West Caicos east in a great curve, namely, the Providenciales, 

 North Caicos, Grand Caicos, and East Caicos, South Caicos, Long Island, 

 the Ambergris Cays, and Swimmer Rock, forming the only land on the 

 east face of the bank. A few isolated patches of rocks of seolian origin 

 rise a few feet above the surface on the southern spit of the bank, and 

 on its west face Fi'ench Cay and other shallow patches mark the out- 

 line of the former Caicos Land. On the sides facing the interior of the 

 bank the shores of the northern islands are all low, passing into lowlands 

 scarcely rising above the level of the sea, and thus forming most indis- 

 tinct coast lines, which gradually pass into the shallow soundings char- 

 acteristic of the northern part of the bank. 



From the northern end of West Caicos as far as the south end of 

 South Caicos there is on the outer edge of the bank a coral reef 



