2 ЕтокА oF NEW PROVIDENCE AND ANDROS 
one hundred feet above sea-level. From here one has an excel- 
lent view of the city and harbor, the latter protected by the narrow 
outlying cays known as Hog Island, Long Island or Quarantine, 
and farther seaward, Salt Cay. In the opposite direction, a low, 
level country, covered with trees and dotted here and there with 
cocoanut groves, stretches away to the Blue Hills. 
Roughly speaking, the physical features of New Providence 
may be described as a rocky ridge, about one hundred feet above 
sea-level at its highest part, extending along the north side and 
covered with a growth of angiospermous trees and shrubs; a low 
central plain out of which rises a second ridge, the Blue Hills, is like 
the first, but narrower and lower; then a slightly undulating region 
covered with the Bahama pine, extends to the low and swampy 
south shore. The depressions of the central plain are occupied 
by two quite large bodies of brackish water, Lake Cunningham 
and Lake Killarney. The latter is the larger and contains numerous 
mangrove islets. 
The rock of both islands is of aeolian formation; it is very 
hard at the surface but becomes so much softer below that it is 
sawn into blocks for a building stone. The surface erosion is 
most striking and characteristic. In many places the rocks are 
fairly honeycombed with holes, pits and cavities of all sizes; often 
sharp, jagged points project, making walking extremely difficult. 
The largest of the pits are locally known as “banana holes” be- 
cause they usually contain considerable earth in which the people 
plant their bananas. They vary greatly in size and shape; the 
majority being probably from eight to ten feet in diameter ; they 
are occasionally twenty feet in depth but are usually much shal- 
lower.. Their sides are often lined with delicate ferns, many of 
which grow nowhere else. 
There is little or no soil. Mark Catesby, the first naturalist 
to visit the islands, wrote in 1754: “The Bahama Islands may 
not only be said to be rocky but are in reality entire Rocks, hav- 
ing the surface in some Places thinly covered with a light Mould 
which in a series of Time has been reduced to that Consistence 
from rotten Trees and other Vegetables. Thus much of the Char- 
acter of these Islands being considered, one would expect that 
they afforded the disagreeable Prospect of bear Rocks: But on 
