A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 



379 



• On the 11th of March, we visited Cay Flamenco. 

 I found its latitude to be 21° 59' 39". The centre of 

 the island is low, rising only fourteen inches above 

 the level of the sea. The water on it is brackish, 

 while that on the other cays is perfectly fresh. The 

 mariners of Cuba, as well as the inhabitants of the 

 lagoons of Venice, and some modern physiologists, 

 attribute this absence of salt to the action of the 

 sand as the water filters through it. But how is this 

 action exerted, where its supposed existence is not 

 justified by any chemical analogy? Besides, these 

 cays are composed of rocks, and not of sand ; and 

 their small extent presents an objection to the sup- 

 position that it is rain water which has gathered and 

 remains standing. Perhaps the fresh water on the 

 cays flows from the adjacent coast, or even from the 

 mountains of Cuba, by the effect of hydrostatic 

 pressure. This would prove that the strata of Juras- 

 sic limestone extends under the sea, and that the 

 coral rock is superposed on the limestone. 1 

 The belief that every spring of fresh or salt water 



1 The ancients were acquainted with these eruptions of fresh water 

 in the sea, near Bay as, Syracuse, and Arado (Phoenicia). The coral 

 islands that surround Radak, particularly the very low island of 

 Otdia, also contain fresh water. A careful examination of these 

 phenomena at the level of the sea, cannot be too strongly recom- 

 mended to travellers. — H. 



