GRENADA AND THE GRENADINES. 251 
extensive tropical land.” These remarks apply to the 
Greater Antilles, probably, and do not preclude Hum- 
boldt’s hypothesis that the Lesser Antilles are islands 
“heaved up by fire.” 
At a meeting of the National Academy, held in 
Washington, in April, 1879, Professor Agassiz read a 
report of his dredging operations during the previous 
winter, expressing the opinion that he had brought to 
light the outlines of old continents, of which the islands 
enclosing the Caribbean Sea are the remnants. Mr. 
Bland, of New York, the well-known conchologist, 
who has especially studied the land-shell distribution 
of the West Indies for many years, adds his testimony 
as to the continental character of the faunas of the dif- 
ferent West Indian islands. __ 
And these few general remarks upon the Lesser 
Antilles as a whole lead me to call the reader’s atten- 
tion to their regularity of position, as shown upon the 
map. It willbe seen that the distance between any 
two adjacent islands lying between St. Vincent and 
Barbuda, is about thirty miles: from Barbuda to 
Antigua, from Antigua to Montserrat, Montserrat to 
Guadeloupe, from the latter to Dominica, from Do- 
minica to Martinique, Martinique to St. Lucia, St. 
Lucia to St. Vincent. A sixty-mile circuit, with 
Grenada as a center, touches St. Vincent, Tobago, 
and Trinidad, and includes all of the Grenadines. 
The almost semicircular line they describe cannot 
but be noticed; nor will it fail to be suggested to the 
most casual observer that, if not vestiges of a con- 
tinent, these islands once formed a continuous barrier 
between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; 
though facts may prove the contrary. I may also 
