34 NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE BAHAMAS 



On Andros I saw a number of caves near the northern part of the 

 island. All were in the sides of the elevated portions. The openings 

 in some, as one near Nicol's Town, were small, barely as large as an 

 ordinary door. Others were simply excavations in the side of the 

 hills. 



In some places, as near Nicol's Town and Mastic Point, small 

 caves were found, twenty to forty feet above high-water mark; and the 

 low vertical cliffs in which they were, indicated the existence of an old 

 shore line, for the rocks were undermined in the same manner as those 

 we now see on the present shore. 



In some of these caves Indian relics have been found, and also 

 human bones, and I obtained a portion of a human humerus from one 

 on Andros. 



Ocean Holes 



Near the caves at Nicol's Town was a hole known as the " Ocean 

 Hole." It was about one hundred feet in diameter and perhaps forty 

 feet in depth, and contained a pool of brackish water. In one place 

 the wall had been excavated so as to form a small cave, while the rest 

 was quite steep and covered with trees and large blocks of coral rock. 

 In one place was a very marked unconformability in the rock, the 

 seeming strata below lying at an angle of about 30 degrees, while 

 above the layers were horizontal. This was probably only an unusual 

 arrangement of the ^olian formation ; but in the Queen's Staircase, 

 where an unusually fine section is exposed, the layers lie at different 

 angles, but are wedged in between each other, as it were, and no such 

 sharp unconformability as that above described is to be seen. 



The name "ocean hole" is also applied by the natives of Andros 

 to deep holes under the water. Some of these are remarkable. The 

 first that I saw was near Mangrove Cay. Herp, close to the shore, was 

 a nearly circular hole at least 100 feet in diameter, and in which the 

 water was said to be over 18 fathoms (104 feet) in depth. I did not 

 have an opportunity of sounding it, but the dark b^e color of the water 

 told its own story. 



While sailing up Fresh Creek, Andros, we came to another ocean 

 hole, which I examined. It was about ten miles from the mouth of the 

 creek, close to the northern bank, and about one hundred feet in diam- 

 eter. From the shore the water for a distance of about fifteen feet 



