ON lUE UCOLUCiV OF liAKlJADOS. 239 



In ;i paper read at the Leeds (1890) meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation, Dr. J. Crawford describes the eastern part of Nicaragua as 

 a zone 8u to 100 miles wide, consisting of lagoons, swamps, and 

 deltas with a " raised bed of sand." He also states that raised 

 Pliocene beds occur on both sides of the main ridge. 



Farther south, in Panama, there are also indications of recent 

 upheaval ; thus the isle of Manzanilla, on which Aspinwall stands, is 

 a raised coral-reef, and Mr. J. A. Lloyd states that there is coral-rock 

 on the northern or Atlantic side of the isthmus, and an indurated 

 clay on the south side of the main ridge*. 



We are informed by Mr. Edw. Easton, C.E., that a civil engineer 

 wlio had constructed a railway in Colombia told him that some of 

 the cuttings up to a level of 500 feet were through coral-rock of 

 recent aspect. 



We deem ourselves, therefore, entitled to assume that the whole 

 Colombian and Central-American area participated in the upheaval 

 of the Caribbean region. We may perhaps go further, saying that 

 there are grounds for regarding the line of the Antilles as an ex- 

 tension or offshoot of the Andes, and for believing that there has 

 been a contemporaneous elevation of the whole Andean range from 

 Cape Horn to Guatemala, and of the whole Antillean chain from 

 Cuba to Barbados. 



We think it has been shown that the raised reefs of the Antilles 

 cannot be referred to the Miocene period, and that the oldest of 

 them does not date farther back than an epoch which would be 

 termed early Pleistocene in European chronology, while the move- 

 ment may have been in progress down to the time of human occu- 

 pation. We look upon the raised coral-reefs of the West Indies as 

 phenomena that are analogous to and contemporaneous with the 

 well-known raised beaches of western South America. 



Let us now go back in thought to the time when this great up- 

 heaval commenced, and attempt some restoration of the geographi- 

 cal conditions of the Caribbean region on the assumption that it 

 has risen through nearly 2000 feet in the Pleistocene epoch ; or, in 

 other words, that the Caribbean and Panamic coasts were, in early 

 Pleistocene time, nearly 2000 feet lower than they are now. In 

 the first place all the larger West-Indian islands were much smaller, 

 while the Bahamas and some of the Windward Islands were not 

 then in existence. The sea also covered large portions of Central 

 America, including considerable lengths of the present watersheds 

 in Panama, Nicaragua, and Southern Mexico. Mr. Easton in- 

 forms us that the greater part of the area of Panama, Costa Eica. 

 Nicaragua, and Honduras lies below an altitude of 500 feet ; and 

 that a submergence of that extent would open several channels 

 between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Thus, the summit-level 

 of the Panama Canal is 459 feet above the sea, the dividing ridge 

 at Nicaragua is only 170 feet, and at Leon in the same state 

 only 212 feet. Parts of Guatemala and the whole of Yucatan 



* Joum. Eoy. Geogr. Soc. vol. i. (1832) p. 70 ; confirmed by Capt. Eobt. 

 Fitzroy, op. cit. vol. xx. (1851) p. 177. 



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