the Providence Channel cuts in from the ocean on
the east and from the Florida Straits on the west,
and the two branches coalesce in the submarine gulf
called the “ Tongue of the Ocean,” which extends
lengthwise of the plateau. There are also in the
watery depths what would be called lclnd-locked
lakes, or bays, if their margins were above the surface.
From this huge but broken platform rise the
peaks and pinnacles whose tops reach the sunlight
and the air, and constitute the hundreds of rocks
and reefs and the few habitable islands which we
know as the Bahamas. For the most part, these
have been built up by the incessant growth through
centuries of the coral polyp, and the growth goes
on still, changing their contour from age to age.
T h e process of construction which began when this
region first sank beneath the waves can be watched
and studied to-day. Sometimes the coral builders
work up columns from the bottom, from thirty to
fifty feet high and twelve to fifteen feet in diameter,
which slowly spread at the surface, like an expanding
mushroom, to a breadth of one hundred feet or
more. Those in proximity coalesce, and amid
crumbling and cementing by the currents and the
calcareous sands, they form islands in whose foundations
are caves and vaults and weird galleries and
corridors, where shapeless monsters lurk. These
caverns exist beneath all the islands, and in the porous
substructure the waters of the ocean ebb and
flow, often lifting and letting down with every tide
the fresh water of wells. An d around the islands
are the silent labyrinths of
1 the coral grove
Where the purple mullet and the goldfish rove,
and a thousand fantastic forms which simulate vegetation
and make the “ gardens of the sea.
The islands consist of the calcareous rock formed
of coral and shells and the cementing substance that
comes from abrasion of the same material, and of
the light soil which ages have accumulated from the
growth and decay of vegetation upon the surface.
There is no sign of primitive or volcanic formation,
but only this result of coral growth. The general
level is but a few feet above the water, though it
rises here and there in a ridge or a hill of a hundred
feet or more, and reaches its culmination on Cat
Island in an altitude of less than four hundred feet.
T h e limestone exposed to the air is hard, but below
the surface it is easily quarried into blocks by sawing,
and these harden ffom exposure. The soil which
covers it in part, and which really has come from its
substance, is strangely fertile in many places. On a
few of the larger islands there are forest growths of
hard wood, as mahogany, ironwood, and lignum-
vitae, and also of pitch-pine and palm. On some there
is rank vegetation of a subtropical kind, and the soil
is easily cultivated to the production of many fruits
and vegetables. There are tamarinds, oranges,
lemons, limes, citrons, pineapples, pomegranates,
bananas, figs, and others; but pineapples and
oranges are those chiefly grown for the market.
There are also melons, yams, potatoes, cassava, pepper,
ginger, coffee, cocoa, indigo, cotton, tobacco,