FLORA oF New PROVIDENCE AND ANDROS 73 
CHAPTALIA ALBICANS (DC.). Conch Sound, March (400). Same 
as Wright 2873. 
SONCHUS OLERACEUS L. Nassau, Jan. (48). 
RELATIONS OF THE BAHAMA FLORA 
Professor Hitchcock has treated this subject very fully in his 
Report on the Plants collected in the Bahamas, Jamaica, and 
Grand Cayman. It is only taken up here because the exploration 
of Andros has furnished additional data. In this connection it may 
be well to describe briefly the character and position of the Bahama 
Islands in relation to the Greater Antilles and North and South 
America. “Тһе Bahamas naturally divide themselves first, into 
sunken banks like the Navidad, Silver and Mouchoir Banks; next 
islands occupying the whole or nearly the whole summit of the 
banks from which they rise, like Watlings, Rum Cay, Concep- 
tion, Samana, Mariguana, the Plana Cays, Inagua, Little Inagua 
and the atoll of Hogsty; then banks having the semblance of 
atolls, like the Crooked Island and Caicos Banks, which are 
fringed by low islands forming a crescent with an open lagoon or 
flat between its horns; next Salt Cay Bank, which from its struc- 
ture holds a position intermediate between the group of sunken 
banks like the Navidad and that resembling Caicos Bank and 
finally such composite banks as Ше Little Bahama and Great 
Bahama Banks with the characteristics of a combination of banks 
resembling all the others.” * 
The Little Bahama Bank, lying in 26° to 27° north latitude, 
is the most northerly. From it rise the islands of Great Bahama 
and Abaco with a number of small cays. The Little Bahama 
Bank is separated from the Great Bahama Bank lying south of it 
by the Northeast and Northwest Providence Channels, which are 
from twenty to thirty miles wide and have a depth of from five 
hundred to two thousand fathoms. 
“Тһе Great Bahama Bank is irregularly V-shaped and has an 
extent of four hundred miles from northwest to southeast and is 
about two hundred and fifty miles in its greatest width." * 
The water on the bank is usually only three or four fathoms 
uba in the 
* A Reconnoissance of the Bahamas and of the elevated Reefs of © 
steam yacht “ Wild Duck," January to April, 1893. Alexander Agassiz. 
