AGASSIZ: BAHAMAS. 127 



The Fragoso Cays are low, and protected on the face of the inner 

 channel by innumerable small cays. Here and there we find cays with 

 a low reef rock bluff or point, but generally they are bordered by sand 

 beaches. Passing Tocinero Point, we come to a wide bay, a passage for 

 small boats making for the mainland, and soon opened upon the mainland 

 an isolated saddle similar to those so frequently seen farther to the east- 

 ward, the remnant probably of limestones belonging to the third terrace. 



To the eastward of Vela Cay there is also a wide passage, leading from 

 the outside of the cays to the interior channel along the main shore of 

 the island. We next come to the Lanzanillo Channel, a similar break 

 between the outer cays. To the westward of this extend Lanzanillo 

 Cay, the Jutias Cays, Cay Canete, and Cay Cristo, separated by the 

 Boca de Marillanes. All these low cays are eroded parts of the sec- 

 ond terrace, with low reef rock bluffs separated here and there by long 

 stretches of coral sand beaches derived from the outlying living reefs of 

 the edge of the shore plateau. 



Sagua la Grande. 



Plate I.; Plate XIII. Fig. 4; Plate XIV. Fig. 1. 



We now reach the entrance to Sagua, a wide channel not less than 

 eleven miles long, carrying nineteen feet of water, fringed on all sides 

 with low mangrove islands. To the northwest of the anchorage opposite 

 the town stretches out a wide, shallow bay, the outer edge of which is 

 protected by the continuation of the numerous cays on the north of the 

 entrance to Sagua (Plate XIII. Fig. 4 ; Plate XIV. Fig. 1). In the dis- 

 tance behiud Sagua rise the Sierra Morenas, and to the eastward the 

 Lomas de Sagua la Grande. Sagua is built on piles on the highest 

 part of a mangrove island, which can hardly be called a part of the 

 mainland. A causeway of limestone brought from the neighboring high- 

 lands forms the main street and the sidings of the railroad station. To 

 the westward of Sagua and of Bahia de Cadiz extends an archipelago of 

 low mangrove cays, reaching to the entrance of Cardenas Bay (Plate 

 XIII. Fig. 4). Cay Piedras, the most westerly of the islands on the 

 Nuevitas-Cardenas plateau, shows a ledge of low bluffs of the usual reef 

 rock. In the background of the cays the Limonar range becomes a 

 prominent feature of the landscape. The hills approach the shore of 

 the mainland again, and we soon make out indistinct traces of some of 

 the higher terraces in the horizontal lines of the saddle-like hills seen 



