and near the middle of it rises Mona (“ Monkey M)
Island, which belongs politically to Puerto Rico.
T he western coast-line of the large island runs
irregularly north and south from Punta de Pefia
Ahujerada to Punta de Aguila, with the Punta del
Juguro marking the farthest westward projection,
about one third of the way down the coast. This
western boundary is a little over forty miles long,
and the island extends eastward a little more than
one hundred miles in the form of a parallelogram,
with its north and south sides slightly indented
here and there with bays and inlets. Toward the
eastern end it diminishes in width, and its outline
becomes more broken, while the eastern coast-line
is quite irregular and deflected to a north-easterly
and south-westerly direction, with two small islands
and a number of islets and keys lying off the shore.
A t the north-east angle is Cape San Juan, and the
south-eastern cape is Malapasqua.
T h e largest of the outlying islands is Vieques, or
“ Crab,” which is about seventeen miles long by five
wide, with a ridge of hills running through its length.
North of its eastern end is L a Culebra (V The
Snake ” ), six miles by three, with a rugged but
wooded surface. Near by this latter is Culebrita,
or L ittle Snake, and North-east and Bird Keys,
which are rocky but wooded cones rising out of the
sea; and between it and Cape San Juan is a string
of reefs, with the cluster of isles named Obispo,
Zancudo, and Ramos off the shore opposite Fajardo.
Including these Islas del Pasaje, or Islands of the
Passage, and Mona Island in the west, the area of
Puerto Rico is set down as 3630 square miles, which
puts it somewhat below Jamaica in size and makes
it about one fifth as large as Haiti and one twelfth
the extent of Cuba.
A n elevated ridge of land runs through the island
from west to east a few miles from the southern
coast, throwing off spurs here and there irregularly
in a northerly direction; but it is hardly more than
a range of wooded hills with a general altitude of
less than 15c» feet, though in the east it is dignified
by the name of the Sierra Cayey. There is a short
range more worthy of the name of mountains in the
north-east, sweeping in a southerly curve from near
Cape San Juan westward, called the Sierra de
Luquillo, which culminates in El Yunque, ‘ ‘ The
Anvil, ’ ’ a graceful peak over 3600 feet high. Except
this solitary summit, none of the heights break into
rocks or precipices, and nowhere on the surface are
there signs of volcanic action. T he whole rocky
skeleton of the island is overlaid with soil, mostly
rich in quality, and the many hills and ridges are
covered with forests and dense vegetation to the
very top. The outer formation of rock is chiefly
limestone, and in some of the lowlands near the
coast there are caves, notably in the vicinity of
Arecibo on the northern s id e ; and there are coralline
structures here and there, though no such islets
and reefs as profusely stud parts of the shores of
Cuba and Haiti.
There are hundreds of running streams, some of
them rivers of considerable size, winding through
the long valleys. Seventeen are enumerated as