FroRA OF NEW PROVIDENCE AND ANDROS 5 
entirely by water, the reef making a safe channel for small boats 
all along the eastern coast. The west coast is exceedingly shallow, 
so much so that our boat, drawing only about two feet of water, 
had sometimes to anchor a quarter of a mile from the shore. 
Even at the edge of the Great Bahama Bank, sixty or seventy 
miles further west there are but three or four fathoms of water. 
The only visitors to this coast are the “ spongers." 
During the four months spent on Andros, we explored it 
quite thoroughly, crossing it several times and almost circum- 
navigating it, making stops at the various settlements on the way 
or camping out on the west side where there were no settlements. 
From one to six weeks were spent at each of the following places : 
Nicol’s Town, Conch Sound, Mastic Point, Fresh Creek, Lisbon 
Creek, and Deep Creek on the east side, and Red Bays on the west. 
We sailed through the northern and middle bights and partly 
through the southern and penetrated the following creeks, most of 
them to the head of navigation for a rowboat: London, Stafford, 
Fresh, Lisbon, Deep, and Grassy creeks on the east ; Loggerhead 
and Big Cabbage creeks and Wide Opening on the west. 
BoTANICAL REGIONS 
The following botanical regions, each with markedly charac- 
teristic plants, were well defined on both islands: First, the mari- 
time or coast flora of the northern side of New Providence and the 
east side of Andros. These shores were rocky with scattered sandy 
beaches. The following plants were common on both islands: 
The sea-grape (Coccolobis uvifera), the buttonwood (Conocarpus 
erecta), the sandfly bush (Х/асіса 15 rupestris), and Strumfia mari- 
tima. The wild sapodilla (Mimusops dissecta), Joe-bush ( /acquinia 
Keyensis), Cordia Sebestena, Borrichia arborescens, and the ram's 
horn (Fithecolobium Unguis-cati) were always found near the shore, 
while on the sandy beaches flourished the cocoa-plum (С/ғуѕоба/- 
anus Icaco), Scaevola Plumteri, Suriana maritima, Tournefortia 
gnaphaliodes, the bay lavender (Ambrosia hispida), Euphorbia buxi- 
folia, the widely distributed Salicornia ambigua, Sesuvium Portula- 
castrum, Cakile aequalis, and the horse-bean (Canavalia obtusifolia). 
Second, the “ coppet,” or growth of angiospermous trees and 
shrubs found on the more elevated parts of the islands and on the 
