REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1901 45 



Leaving out of consideration the causes to which these earth- 

 crust movements are due, the reader is asked for the present 

 to take it for granted that such a correlation between the 

 downfolds of the Earth's crust and its upfolds actually does 

 exist ; and that wherever movements of elevation or of 

 depression are in progress now, there will be found, on the 

 margin of that area, another within which the flexure takes 

 the opposite direction. These undulatory or wave-like move- 

 ments are just as much in progress now as they can be 

 shown to have been in the past ; and it is largely due to 

 their action that, in the course of long ages, the major 

 features of both the continental and the oceanic areas for 

 the time being have been determined. 



One of the best examples of the features in question, which 

 may be cited here with especial appropriateness at the present 

 time (1902), is that afforded by the Windward Islands in 

 the West Indies, which have been, and still are, the theatre 

 of so many tragic events in connection with the recent disastrous 

 volcanic eruptions. Any good physical map or chart of the 

 archipelago in question will show that this chain of islands 

 lies upon a well-marked ridge, which is fundamentally little 

 else than an old ocean floor recently upheaved. This ridge, 

 with its accompanying chain of volcanoes, is flanked on the 

 one side by the deep waters of the Atlantic, and on the 

 other by the deeper — almost abysmal — waters of the Caribbean 

 Sea. The Windward Islands are, in fact, based upon a great 

 submarine upfold, which is correlative to the downfolds adjacent. 

 Furthermore, if we regard the feature in question still more 

 broadly, we shall see that the Windward Islands are simply a 

 continuation of that great marginal upfold which borders the 

 depressed area of the Eastern Pacific, along the whole extent of 

 South America. It is upon the summits of this ridge that the 

 stupendous volcanic piles of the Andes are borne aloft. Many 

 other examples of the same nature could easily be cited. 



The Windward Islands were certainly part of an area which 

 lay deep below the surface of the ocean in quite recent geological 

 times. This is clearly enough shown by the nature of the organic 

 remains entombed in the rocks upheaved. To a varying extent 

 this also can be said of nearly — perhaps quite — all recent 

 volcanoes. The uplift therefore must have taken place quite 



