146 THE TOPOGliAI'HY AND (JEOLOGY 



has also (j^uarricd out inimiiierable caverns of no mean size. I spent a week investi- 

 gating this region and visited many of the caves, but found tliem so numerous that 

 tlie task became at last somewhat monotonous. A few of the caverns are now far 

 out of reach of the water, and in one of them I made my headquarters. The entire 

 length of this cave is about 200 feet. It is by no means the largest ; one in an ad- 

 joining hill being at least twice the size. This cave occupies almost the entire in- 

 terior of one of the hills, the entrance being on one side, while at the extreme back 

 end a window-like opening in the roof overlooks the water on the other side. Below 

 the mouth is a broad piece of smooth sand beach covered with mangroves and cocoa- 

 uut trees, from which a gentle slope of a dozen feet or more leads up the entrance. 

 Inside, the floor is level throughout, while the roof is worn into a series of broad 

 arches. Very few stalactites, and none of any beauty, occur in this or any of the 

 other caves ; an occasional opaque Avhite fringe along a creek, or a massive shapeless 

 column being about the only productions of this class. In no case did I find the 

 slightest trace of stalagmitic floor. These caves give us one of the strongest proofs 

 that exist of the recent and yet continuing uplifting of the land. Some of them are 

 twenty feet above tide-water, while the arched-roofs of others are more than twice 

 that height. Others are at lowei' levels, while still others are in process of formation 

 or only just begun. The excavating action seems to take place only about the sur- 

 face level of the sea. In all cases the bluffs are undermined a few feet, while occa- 

 sionally the cavity extends a much greater distance, but so low as not to permit the 

 entrance of a boat— an incipient cavern. Where the ordinary undermining only is 

 taking place the excavation does not occur higher than the splash of high tide ; a 

 fact well proven by live mangrove oysters growing in great clusters under the shelves. 

 The largest cave is in part open yet to the sea, which washes through a dozen doors 

 or under low arches. The floor of the lower chambers is a beach of calcareous sand- 

 stone pebbles strewn with drift-wood and covered at high tides by the sea. At one 

 end of this hall, so to speak, a little opening hardly large enough to crawl through, 

 gives access to another series of large chambers at a higher level. The walls are all 

 creamy-white, except where defaced by the smoke of the few candles and torches 

 that seem to have entered here. These dark recesses do not seem to be favorite 

 places of resort. ... ,, ; ; ..^ ^ 



Careful search was made in all the caves where auj depth of deposit existed over 

 the rock-bottom, in hopes of finding some remains of cave animals, such as those 

 descri])ed from Anguilla, but none seem to exist. In the cave where I slept there 

 is an extensive and interesting kitchen-midden divisible into two eras; the older 



