240 Dr. Skey on the Geology of Barbadoes. 



here intersected by deep fissures, called gullies, which have rent 

 asunder the cliffs, and are continued across the terraces in irregular 

 lines. 



These rents in the rocks are sometimes of great depth but of 

 little breadth, and, generally speaking, are very precipitous in their 

 sides, so as to be quite impassable, excepting here and there. Their 

 perpendicular sides exhibit the structure of the coralloidal rocks to 

 a considerable depth. Their bottoms are the beds of rapid torrents 

 in the rainy season, and almost the only places where any native 

 wood is now to be met with. 



This scantiness of wood, together with the little elevation of the 

 island in any part, renders Barbadoes very liable to drought, much 

 more so than any of its neighbouring islands, and the inhabi- 

 tants already speculate upon the necessity of replanting with a view 

 to increase the fall of rain ; but they will not find it an easy matter 

 to effect a growth of wood upon their arid rocks. Even in the island 

 of St. Vincent, where the quantity of rain is so much greater, failure 

 perpetually follows the attempt ; probably because we are ignorant 

 of the successive means that have been required to produce the 

 luxuriant vegetation which, under natural operations, springs from 

 rocks almost bare of mould ; and because too, we attempt to pro- 

 duce in a few years effects which have required ages to accomplish. 

 Upon the northern and north-eastern side of the island is a 

 district several miles in length, varying in breadth from half a mile 

 to two or three miles, which differs wholly from the rest of the 

 island in its general features. It is in fact a mountainous country 

 in miniature, and indeed that part of it which has most of this 

 character is called Scotland. 



I never had an opportunity of exploring it minutely, but, as far 

 as I could judge, the rf^cks are almost wholly calcareous, though 



