AGASSIZ : BAHAMAS. 101 



lated the salt ponds once the source of a profitable industry for the 

 inhabitants. On the west side of the island near the southern end 

 the 100 fathom line is less than eight hundred feet from the shore, 

 and the reef which skirts that part of the island forms an exceed- 

 ingly narrow belt from the 4 or 5 fathom line to the 12 or 15 fathom 

 line. It fringes the southeastern end of the island, and on the east 

 face extends in a mass of disconnected heads irregularly scattered 

 over the 3 fathom line reach which stretches eastward from the shore, 

 gradually passing into the reef which flourishes along the 4 or 5 

 fathom line, and which extends from Northeast Reef to Tucker Rock, 

 along the centre of Turk's Bank, connecting all the cays of that side. 

 On the northern part of the west face the reef is broader and has a 

 width of from an eighth to a quarter of a mile. It increases in width 

 on the north side, and there connects with the broad reef on the east of 

 the island. To the southwest of the southern spit of the island a reef 

 runs for nearly four miles which protects Hawk's Nest Anchorage. The 

 whole of the space included between Gibbs, Long, and East Cays on 

 one side, and from the south spit of Turk's Island to Salt Cay on the 

 other, is filled with huge heads of corals, some of which have been de- 

 scribed as having attained an exceptional size. 1 I am more inclined 

 to look upon these gigantic coral heads as coral blocks of the usual 

 size growing upon isolated pinnacles of seolian rock such as are so 

 common in the Bahamas and the Bermudas, and which here represent 

 the remnants of the disintegrated greater Turk's Island, which has all 

 disappeared towards Endymion Rock. 



East Cay is the highest of the Turk's Islands, the seolian hills being 

 ninety-six feet high. Cotton Cay and Salt Cay are both formed, as is 

 Grand Turk Island, in part of shore coral rock and in part of seolian 

 rock. Sand Cay, the southern of the Turk's Islands, also consists of 

 seolian rock. A coral reef runs off from the island in a northerly direc- 

 tion for nearly two miles. 



The southernmost trace of the former Turk's Islands land is Endymion 

 Rock, which stands isolated near the southwestern spit of the Turk's 

 Islands Bank. From Salt Cay to the southwest spit of the bank the 

 soundings vary from six to thirteen fathoms. The whole bank has a 

 remarkably uniform depth, and a very abrupt slope from ten or twelve 

 fathoms to one hundred fathoms. The bank is covered with decom- 

 posed seolian rock sand, mixed here and there with corallines. 



1 See A. E. Verrill, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1862. 



