the interior country.

44, APPENDIX.

To the south, the land in generalis poor, and of areddislr

a. and the same extends over a considerable part of

ISLAND OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER.

VOL. I. BOOK IH=-PAGE 420,.

c

‘‘ The interior part of the country consists of many rugged precipices and barren mountains. Of these, the loftiest is Mount Misery(evidently a decayed volcano) which rises 3711 feet in perpendicular height from the sea. Nature, however, has made abundant amends for the sterility of the mountains, by the fertility she has bestow- ed upon the plains. No. part of the West Indies, that Ihave seen, possesses even the same species of soilthat is found

in Saint Christopher’s; it 1s in a a dark grey loam, 80

1° i

hight and porous as to be penetrable by the slightest ap- plication of the hoe, and I conceive it to be the produc- tion of sudterraneous fires, the black ferruginous pumice of naturalists, finely ane with a pure loam of virgin

mould. The under stratum is gravel, from eight to

twelve inches ee‘lay is no where found e xcept at a

considerable height in the mountains, By what process

5'

of nature the soil which I have mentioned, becomes

more