Geographie Character: West Indies. 123 
the east end of the island. Although apparently it ceases at Cape Cruz, it 
is continued as the Misterosa Bank, which barely reaches the surface of the 
water, but yet rises precipitously 18,000 feet from the bottom of the sea. — 
The islands of the Greater Antilles are not exclusively mountainous. There 
are numerous valleys, plains and plateaus, often of wide extent and great 
fertility, which will be mentioned in our description of the various islands. 
a. Virgin Islands and St. Croix. 
East of Puerto Rico stretches a group of islands known by the name of 
Virgin islands. The principal islands are Vieques and Culebra. belonging 
to the United States, St. Thomas and St. John belonging to Denmark, 
Tortola, Virgin Gorda and Anegada belonging to England. The islands 
of the group are mountainous and project above the water like submerged 
peaks, which they actually are, representing a submarine prolongation of the 
mountains of Puerto Rico. The submarine bank of which these islands form 
the upper projections is only 6 to 20 fathoms deep between the various islands 
of the chain. The total area of the islands hardly aggregates two hundred 
square miles, the largest island, St. Thomas having a superficial extent of only 
thirty-seven square miles (96 qkm). The highest point on St. Thomas is 
1550 feet (472 m), on Tortola 1780 feet (543 m), whilst hills in Vieques and 
Culebra are only 500—6co feet high, while Anegada (Spanish inundated) is 
elevated only a few feet above sea-level. The central islands present the 
appearance of a steep ridge, precipitously sloping to the north and the south, 
and cut by ravines, which during heavy rains are the beds of small torrents 
which are dry in ordinary weather. The lower ends of these streams beds 
widen into level tracts on the sea-coast forming a lagoon on the sandy shore. 
The coast between these level plains is generally bold and rocky, forming 
picturesque promontories. 
These islands are all of the same general geologic composition as the 
Greater Antilles consisting of a foundation of rocks of probable Paleozoic origin, 
covered by masses of Cretaceous and Tertiary conglomerates, and clay derived 
from the vanished West Indian-Central American continent. These rocks are 
superficially covered by oceanic chalky-white limestones, which are in turn 
fringed by coral-reef rock, while dikes of ancient volcanic material penetrate 
the older rocks. The soil with the exception of that of Vieques is a red 
‚heavy clay. ; 
St. Croix lies to the south of the Virgin islands and is separated from 
them by an immense chasm more than 2000 fathoms deep. The island is 
83 square miles (215 qkm) in area and has a high sharp configuration, with 
deep cliffs near the shore and many low hills in the interior. The northern 
and southern shores approach each other toward the eastern end, where the 
meet in a rounded point. The north side is hilly and broken, with one well- 
defined valley, that of the Salt River. The eastern end has hills 600 feet high 
and is surrounded by a shoal five to eight fathoms deep. Hills are found 
