274 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



uniformity in characters as found in the Bahamas; and it is urged 

 that the coral atoll makes a peremptory demand to be called as a 

 witness in this connection. It is suggested that the Bahamas were 

 in ages past the Laccadives and Maldives of the Atlantic. The 

 implication is that atolls originally crowned the summits of the 

 ranges of submarine mountains that are now represented by the 

 banks of the Bahamian seas, atolls long since overwhelmed by the 

 shifting sand-dune, the work of which is presented in the seolian 

 sandstone of our own day. But, as in the linear grouping of atolls, 

 formed by the Laccadive and Maldive archipelagos, there is a " con- 

 tinental " end, where the Bahamian archipelago abuts on the adjacent 

 continent, and an " oceanic " end, where it projects into the ocean's 

 depths; and it is hinted that the standpoint adopted concerning 

 Bahamian problems largely depends on whether the investigator 

 was familiar with the continental or the oceanic portion (pp. 255-6). 



3. Then follows a discussion of the views of Alexander Agassiz 

 on the formation of the Bahamas. The present writer's detailed 

 examination of the Turks Islands, during a sojourn of three months 

 in the group, enables him to approach the problems from the 

 "oceanic" standpoint; but, although at one with the eminent 

 American investigator as regards the leading structural features of 

 the group, he ventures to differ from him on some points of inter- 

 pretation. Thus, there can be little doubt that the existing Bahamas 

 are the remains of great tracts of low land of seolian formation that 

 have been in great part destroyed by the waves; but the writer 

 holds that the degradation occurred under the present conditions of 

 sea-level, and not during a subsidence of 300 feet as is assumed by 

 Agassiz. Then, again, the writer emphasises the great work of the 

 reclaiming agencies under present conditions, a matter on which 

 Agassiz lays little stress. Amongst other incidental points of differ- 

 ence are objections that he does not attach sufficient importance to 

 the isolation of the eastern islands by the ocean's depths, and that 

 the foundations of the seolian formation lie near the existing sea- 

 level, and not far beneath the waves as is implied by his subsidence 

 hypothesis (pp. 256-9). 



4. The author then gives the results of his observations on the 

 Turks Islands. The formation of the seolian sandstone is first 

 discussed, and the absence of marine remains is pointed out. In 

 this connection the results obtained by Louis Agassiz on the Salt 

 Key Bank are utilised. It is remarked that if Nature busied herself 

 ages since in producing the seolian rocks, she is now actively engaged 

 in their destruction. Yet there is a process of reclamation at work 

 that will ultimately prevail, and new land has been, and is being, 

 formed around the remnants of the early islands. Disconnected 

 islets of seolian rock, that are the fragments of a large island, have 

 been, and are being, joined together again into one island by the 

 growth of coral reefs and the formation of sandbanks. In this 

 manner the destructive action of the waves has often been stayed ; 

 and in the larger islands, while the more elevated " nuclei " of seolian 

 sandstone belong to the past, the low tracts of land that have been 

 formed around them belong to the present (pp. 259-262). 



