Jamaica, I had engaged return passage on the Prinz August Wil- 

 helm, scheduled to leave Kingston the twenty -fourth of January. 

 It was my plan after finishing the work at Montego Bay to spend 

 a few days in collecting at Port Antonio and then make a brief visit 

 to Cinchona, the tropical station of the New York Botanical Gar- 

 den, in the famous Blue Mountains of Jamaica. But something 

 happened which had not entered into human calculations. At 

 about 3:35 o'clock on Monday afternoon, the fourteenth, while I 

 was picking up my specimens and collecting outfit for moving on 



to Port Antonio, occurred the great earthquake which made itself 

 felt throughout the island and brought ruin to its metropolis, 

 Kingston. Little damage was done at Montego Bay, but the few, 

 brief, and conflicting telegrams which reached us that evening and 

 the following day told us plainly enough that a great disaster had 

 overtaken certain other parts of the island. The next day I was 

 on the point of going on board one of the United Fruit Com- 

 pany's banana-laden steamers bound for Port Antonio, as I had 

 previously planned, but was finally dissuaded by the company's 

 local agent, who told me that the hotels in Port Antonio were 



