NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE BAHAMAS 29 



through the pines and reaching the west side, one comes to the most 

 remarkable feature of the island. Here one sees spread out before 

 him, as far as the eye can reach, a low swampy country covered 

 with small mangroves, Conocarpus and Avicennia, bounded on one 

 side by the water, and sometimes, in the distance, by a dark line of 

 pines. The pines, however, frequently jut out in points that approach 

 quite close to the water's edge. This level swampy land is locally 

 known by the very appropriate name of " swash." To the west of the 

 land stretches the Great Bahama Bank for a distance of from fifty to 

 seventy miles, and the slope of the bottom is so exceedingly slight that 

 at the distance of seventy miles from shore the water is but three or 

 four fathoms deep. The bank then plunges suddenly into the ocean 

 beyond. 



There are many creeks on the island, and the water in all, at a 

 distance of ten or fifteen miles from the mouth, is drinkable. Many 

 little streams of fresh water flow into these creeks, thus partially drain- 

 ing the immense area of swash. 



The creeks are generally narrow and winding, and by wearing 

 away the land on the convex side of the curves change the character 

 of the surface of the country. This was most plainly seen up Cabbage 

 Creek, near Wide Opening, on the west side. Here, as the creek wore 

 its way into the land, it was followed on the concave side by a growth 

 of small mangroves, while its convex side was fringed with palmettoes. 

 As the creek, in winding, changed its course, the palmettoes and man- 

 groves changed sides, as it were, the former always on the outside of 

 the curve, thus making quite a striking alteration in the appearance of 

 the landscape. 



The surface on the w^estern side of Andros is composed of an 

 exceedingly fine, almost impalpable, calcareous coral "mud," that also 

 forms the bottom of the shallow water that covers the bank. As we go 

 back from the w^ater's edge this deposit becomes harder and harder, 

 until finally it is cemented into a hard, very fine-grained rock that is 

 very different in appearance from the rock of the eastern coast. The 

 latter is ^Eolian and varies in texture. In some places it is quite coarse 

 and in others fine, but always composed of rounded grains of coral 

 sand or comminuted shells. In some places, as at Conch Rock, near 

 Conch Sound, the rock has been so altered as to resemble a dark gray 

 crystalline limestone. In one place only did I see the contact between 



