ISTl.] ^'^ [P.land. 



Referring to the Anguilla cave remains, Prof. Cope remarks (Proc. Acad. 

 N. S. Pliila., 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 Korth America." 



The occurrence 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 ISTorth 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. Kotes on the Geology of some of the "West 

 Indies, for a perusal of which I am indebted to Mr. Rawson, observes 

 that the ^? stern 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 connection with the views of Sawkius with regard 

 to Jamaica. 



"The current of the Deluge between the Tropics ran from 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 Irom 

 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 Yalley of St. George's. The course of the gullies is, too, from East 

 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 arc, generallj- speaking, on the windward side of their respective 

 groups and hanks.— (-VcZso?!.) 



