‘ 
Blanad.] 6 2 [March 3, 
Referring to the Anguilla cave remains, Prof. Cope remarks (Proc. Acad. 
N.S. Phila., 1868) on their indicating “that the Caribbean continent had 
' not been submerged prior to the close of the Post-pliocene, and that its 
connection was with the other Antilles, while a wide strait separated it 
from the then comparatively remote shores of North America.”’ 
The oceurrence with the Anguilla fossils of a land shell of a species 
now living, points to the age of the existing tauna, but the marked’ 
difference, both generic and specific, between the present land shell fauna 
of the Islands upon and to the North and West of the Anguilla bank and 
those to the South of it, may be taken as evidence of their early and con- 
tinued separation. 
Captain Parsons, in MS. Notes on the Geology of some of the West 
Indies, for a perusal of which I am indebted to Mr. Rawson, observes 
that the eastern or windward edge of the Grenada bank is at an average 
distance of 7 miles from the Islands, while the western edge is not more 
than two-thirds of a mile, and that there is a similar great disparity in 
“other of the banks and Islands. He concludes that such increased develop- 
ment of the eastern over the western sides is primarily due to the equa- 
torial current, which running for ages through the Islands has brought 
and deposited material on the windward side.* 
On this subject, the following quotation from ‘‘The Natural History of 
Barbadoes,”’ by the Rev. W. Hughes, London, 1750, is really interesting, 
and particularly so in connectiqn with the views of Sawkins with regard 
to Jamaica. 
“The current of the Deluge between the Tropics ranfrom East to West. 
Notice the shattered condition of the eastward side of the chain of hills 
and cliffs, which are as barriers to the Island (Barbados), from Cuckold’s 
Point to Conset’s Bay, for as they face the East their torn state on that 
side alone and no where else, shews that they not only by their situation, 
first stemmed, but as they were higher than any other part of the Island, 
they wholly bore the repeated percussions of the current in the gradual 
ascent of the Deluge. Notice, also, the coping figure of the Island from 
East to West, for if we view narrowly the several gradual descents of so 
many continued ridges of rock, like cascades, descending precipitously 
to the westward (for instance, the long chain of hills from Mount Gilboa, 
in St. Lucia’s Parish, to the Black Rock in St. Michael’s), we shall con- 
clude from the deep soil on the eastward of these where the land is level, 
and from the rugged and bare washed surface of the west, that the latter was 
thus torn by the violence of the waters falling over them, and the former, 
the effect of the subsided sediment upon the decrease of the Deluge. 
The want of such a bed of rocks from Black Rock to St. Anne’s Castle 
caused the chasm which opens to the sea through Bridgetown opposite 
to the Valley of St. George’s. The course of the gullies is, too, from Hast | 
to West, and they were caused by the current of the Deluge, the regular 
course of which to the westward between the tropics was the natural con- 
sequence of the easterly trade wind.”’ 
* In the Bahamas the islands are, generally speaking, on the windward side of their respective 
groups and banks,—(Nelson.) 
