116 J. W.SPENCER — RECONSTRUCTION OP ANTILLEAN CONTINENT. 



nels. On the Honduras banks, where the water is about 175 feet deep, 

 there are several drowned canyons as shown in figure 6. On the 

 northern side of this submerged plain the channel forms a canyon trace- 

 able to 690 feet and on the southern side to 940 feet. The passage be- 

 tween Rosalind and Pedro banks, with a depth of 4,400 feet and a width 

 of 80 miles, connecting the Honduras and Caribbean seas, is only the 

 union of the valleys on the opposite sides of the ridge, apparently broad- 

 ened and deepened by marine currents established when the submer- 

 gence was half or less that of the present. The channel between Pedro 

 bank and Jamaica, with a depth of about 3,000 feet and width of 40 

 miles is of similar character. That between the sea of Honduras and 

 the gulf of Mexico reaches a depth of 7,000 feet and a width between 

 the banks of 100 miles, or 140 miles from land to land. This is of like 



597^ 

 - ^\ 3^^^.^^ 





^a^^^'"^ y^\m\-i %'^^<'"^'^' ^ HJ^ .-14* — 



Figure 6.—Map of Honduras and Rosalind Banks, showing Fjords. (From Hydrographic Office Chart 



No. 21.) 



character to the other channels and has been broadened out by the ma 

 rine currents when the submergence was less than the present amount. 

 From the structure the writer concludes that a greater amount of depres- 

 sion occurred here than in the region of the Rosalind banks, or else that 

 the submergence was earlier. The physical character of both these pas- 

 sages is modern, in the region of least orogenic disturbances, and their 

 depths, inferior to those of the fjords (the Yucatan being in juxtaposi- 

 tion to them), show that the outlets of the present basins were not across 

 these ridges. One other fjord must close the list. This has a depth of 

 7,000 feet within the limits of the lower terrace off the Honduras coast. 

 It is probably a continuation of Segovia river. 



On the Pacific coast the somewhat scanty soundings prevent exhaust- 

 ive study, but it seems that the shelf depressed off the coast of Centra 



