258 R. T. HILL — PELE AND THE WINDWARD ARCHIPELAGO 



of the adjacent sea bottoms gives much of the history of the islands and 

 enables one to determine their relation or non-relation to other lands. 

 The composition and stratigraphic arrangement of the rock material also 

 assists in telling this history, while paleontology is a guide to the age of 

 things.* 



VAQUE THEORIES CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE ISLANDS OF THE WIND 



WARD ARCHIPELAGO 



Vague theories concerning the geographic origin and history of the 

 islands have obscured the simpler volcanic story of the Windward archi- 

 pelago. In fact, the origin of these islands has been interpreted by 

 many writers, according to convenience, to fill in cracks and crevices 

 existing in any argument they may have desired to maintain. Most of 

 these have had little foundation in nature. 



The oldest and most popular — the continental theory — is that the 

 islands are the decadent remnants of a once much greater and connected 

 continental land, and some have even asserted that they were the rem- 

 nants of the lost Atlantis. 



The continental theory is as old as tradition. Mr J. W. Spencer has 

 revived it in a form in many papers. In these he has endeavored to 

 prove that the islands are remnants of the backbone of a mythical An- 

 tillean continent, which connected the North American and South 

 American continents in Pleistocene and earlier time. 



Moreau de Jones, in the early part of this century, advanced what 

 might be termed the orogenic theory. His hypothesis is that the Wind- 

 ward islands were a northeast spur of the Andean mountain axis, which, 

 together with the Cumana mountains of Venezuela and the Greater 

 Antilles, constituted a continuous mountain chain, and that the Lesser 

 Antilles were the submerged peaks of this chain. 



In addition to the above theories Milne and Doctor Tempest have 

 recently spoken of the Windward islands as occupying the summit of 

 a great fold in the earth's crust, f 



Both the orogenic theory of Moreau de Jones and the continental theory 



* In each of these lines research data are still needed. In physiography the contour of the sub- 

 marine areas can not be finally determined for lack of a few more appropriate soundings ; in stra- 

 tigraphy we are handicapped at the beginning by ignorance of the basic formation of many of the 

 veneered islands and submerged banks which could easily be determined by drills ; in paleontol- 

 ogy the range of the Tertiary and Pleistocene fossils has not been clearly made out by the 

 paleontologists on whom we rely. 



Notwithstanding the incompleteness of knowledge, much has been done and enough has been 

 found out to present some conclusions far more definite than certain eccentric theories which have 

 been formulated, in some far-off study, without any foundation in nature at all, and which, strange 

 to say, have found credence. 



t The Geographical Journal, March, 1903, p. 266. 



