196 CUBA 



seaboard, the coast of Mexico, the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica, 

 Central America, the Isthmus, and the coast of South America. 

 The island commands three important maritime gateways: 

 the Straits of Florida, leading from the Atlantic ocean into the 

 Gulf of Mexico; the Windward passage, leading from the At- 

 lantic into the Caribbean sea, and the Yucatan channel, con- 

 necting the Caribbean sea and the Gulf. The first and last of 

 these completely command the Gulf of Mexico. It is less than 

 96? miles from Key West to the north coast of Cuba. From the 

 east end of the island, Haiti and Jamaica are visible,,54 and 85 

 miles distant respectively. From the western cape (San Anto- 

 nio) to Yucatan the distance is 130 miles. 



OUTLINE, DIMENSIONS, AND AREA 



The outline of the island, commonly compared by the Span- 

 iards to that of a bird's tongue, also resembles a great, hammer- 

 headed shark, the head of which forms the straight, south coast 

 of the east end of the island, while the body extends to the west- 

 ward in a sinuous curve. This analogy is made still more strik- 

 ing by two long, fin-like strings of cays or islets, which extend 

 backward along the opposite coasts, parallel to the main body of 

 the island. 



The longer axis of the island extends from the 74th to the 

 85th meridian, while its latitude, between 19° 40' and 23° 33', 

 embraces nearly four degrees. Its length, following an axial 

 line drawn through its center from Cape Ma} T ci to Cape San An- 

 tonio, is 730 miles. Its width varies from 90 miles in the east 

 to less than 20 miles in the longitude of Habana. Cape Mayci, 

 on the east, lies directly south of New York, while Cape San 

 Antonio is situated south of Cincinnati. 



At the outset the reader should dispossess his mind of any 

 preconceived idea that the island of Cuba is in any sense a phys- 

 ical unit. On the contrary, it presents a diversity of topographic, 

 climatic, and cultural features which, as distributed, divide the 

 island into at least three distinct natural provinces, which for 

 convenience may be termed the Eastern, Central, and Western. 



No accurate trigonometric surveys have been made of the 

 island and its bordering islets, including 570 cays adjacent to 

 the north coast and 730 to the south, or of the Isle of Pines, a 

 large and important dependency. Nearly all existing geographic 

 data have been based upon a large map compiled by Pichardo, 



