340 



MEXICO, CENTRAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



central part having an average depth of 1,500 fathoms for a space that may be 

 estimated at nearly one half of the entire area. Towards the centre a vast plain 

 runs north-east and south-west for nearly 1| miles, at a depth of nearly 2,000 

 fathoms. 



The Yucatan channel between the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea sinks to 1,000 

 fathoms off the west point of Cuba, but elsewhere it is much shallower. At its 

 southern entrance, another secondary triangular basin, the " Yucatan Pit," 

 between Cuba, Yucatan, and Honduras, has a nearly uniform depth of 2,250 

 fathoms, falling in one place to 2,300. But it is limited southwards by the shallow 

 bank whose crest is indicated by the chain of the Cayman and Misteriosa islets 

 stretching from Cape Cruz in Cuba westwards towards British Honduras. South 



Fig. 158.— Caeibbean Sea. 

 Scale 1 : 3,(iOP,000. 



20* 



Depths. 



to 100 

 Fathoms. 



100 to 1,250 

 Fathoms. 



1,250 to 2,500 

 Fathoms. 



2,500 Fathoms 

 and upwards. 



60 Miles 



of the Cayman ridge is developed the " Bartlett Pit," a much larger basin extend- 

 ing from the Bay Islands near the Honduras coast for about 950 miles to the 

 Windward Channel between Cuba and Haiti. Here occurs the greatest depth 

 yet recorded in the American Mediterranean, a chasm of 3,430 fathoms, 21 miles 

 south of Great Cayman, terminal crest of a vast sabmarine mountain. No other 

 example is found in the whole world of such an enormous difference of level 

 within such a narrow spaco. The submerged range of the Caymans is skirted on 

 its south side by a depression with a mean depth of 3,000 fathoms. 



South of this depression the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and Cape Gracias- 

 à-Dios on the mainland is again half-closed by a submarine ridge rising to the 

 surface at the Pedro, liosalind, and Mosquitos banks. About 1 24 miles south-west 



