PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE ISLANDS A SYSTEMATIC SEQUENCE OF ISLAND DEVELOPMENT
My chief interest in the Lesser Antilles lay in their physiographic features. These I had opportunity of observing either briefly or deliberately during my voyage, when stops varying from half a day to nearly a fortnight were made on ten of the islands and views of about as many more were had from the steamer's deck. The observations thus made have been supplemented since my return by an examination of many charts and by a study of pertinent descriptions. Thus the islands have gradually come to take their place in my mind as members of a developing sequence;1 so that, the sequence once being known, the général features of any island may be concisely learned from the stage it occupies in the sequence ; and, the général features being thus learned, the spécial features can be easily apprehended as individual modifications of the général features. The sequence in its simplest form begins with a volcanic island, built up from a slowly subsiding sea floor by a succession of active éruptions; after eruptive growth ceases, the island gradually diminishes by érosion as well as by subsidence, while a lagoon1 See, for a brief statement of their origin, W. M. Davis: The Formation of the Lesser Antilles, Proc. Natl. Acad. of Sri., Vol. 10, 1924, pp. 205-211.