DES. T. ANDERSON AND J. S. FLEET ON THE ERUPTIONS OF THE 
36 6 
through this flat country, with rich cultivated laud on each side, except where it 
skirts the sea shore. The Carilj Country at the base of the Soufriere, north of George¬ 
town, is part of this tract’of low ground, and on it stood some of the largest and best 
estates in the island, now devastated and covered by volcanic ashes (see Plate 21, 
fig, 1). 
The difference in aspect between the flat-terraced coastal plains on the windward, 
and the sharp spurs and deep valleys which on the leeward side run right down to 
the sea, is so striking as to call for explanation. The windward plains are eroded and 
cut into by valleys, but these have none of the rugged steejjness which makes the 
leeward coast so picturesque. Tlie ridges between the valleys are broad and flat- 
topped, with fine fields of sugar-cane and arrowroot. They differ entirely from the 
knife-edges which separate the ravines on tlie higher grounds and the narrow ridges 
between the deep valleys on the western shore. In some places the low, 
round-backed hiUs have rather tlie appearance of a chalk country in the south of 
England. 
The line of demarcation between these two terranes is in many places fairly well 
defined. Its altitude is about 700 feet above the sea. Not unffequently, however, 
the one type of country blends with the other; there is no sharp boundary, but the 
hollow, concave, deeply incised features of the uplands soften and gradually give 
place to the rounded, convex, somewhat flowing outlines of the plain country 
beneath. 
In some places this coastal plain is beautifully terraced. Flat benches, separated 
from one another hy steep declivities, mark successive levels of the sea during some 
previous epoch of submergence. One very persistent terrace is almost 200 feet 
above the sea level. It is very conspicuous about Mount Pleasant and Brighton 
on the windward road, 6 or 8 iniles from Kingstown. Below it two lower flats 
can also be seen, and above it there are others. The liighest well-preserved beach 
which we saw was on tlie south side of the Mariaqua Valley, at about 690 feet 
aliove sea level, but, as a rule, the higher terraces have suffered from erosion far more 
tlian the lower, and are much less perfect and less easily traced. In all there are at 
least six or seven of these old sea levels, though, in the aljsence of an accurately 
contoured map, much time would have been required to ascertain their exact 
numbei'. In some places near Brighton it is possiljle to make out four, one above 
another. 
They are never capped with uplifted coral reefs as are some of the raised beaches 
of Dominica and Grenada. Careful inquiry showed that there was no limestone in 
St. Vincent, and tliat all the lime used was obtained from Iflocks of coral taken from 
the living reefs along various parts of the shore. Nor, so far as we saw, are they 
covered with deposits of lieach gravel, as in the more recent raised beaches of 
Dominica. This may l)e so in some places, but it cannot be by any means common. 
Good sections of these terraces are quite frequent on the windward road, which often 
