Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly.

  • Jamaica. Central Board of Health
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    the east, consists oHow, iibrnpt, and precipitous hills, Avith but little land between them and the sea. This island displays characteristic appearances of bavins? been the sport of mii2,hty revolutions; it bears indeliblv iuipressed upon it, the record of the earth- qtiakefits therinal sprinj^'s, and volcanic reliqaes, ])oint to iinprisoned tires burstin^i; from their thral- dom, when the Carribbean Archipelago was probably nj)lieaved into islands, and its intervening valleys overwhelmed by the bubbling- tide. Since these days, however, Jamaica has felt the in- fluence of subterranean forces, and has been on one, or more than one occasion, shaken to her very foun- dation ; its fissured cliffs, and distorted strata, its mural precipices, its cavernous pits, and rocky vallies, all bear witness of the miraculous fury of convulsed nature. Primitive or nnstratified rocks, which formed in the days of chaos, or ere man was, the naked skele- ton of the globe, do not appear to exist. The oldest vock here of the transition formation, aTid consists of grauwacke, under difi'erent varieties and forms. J)e la Beche informs us, that these rocks are to be met with, chiefly in the mountains of Surry, the site of the loftiest and largest ranges, also in the parishes of St. Mary and St. John. As regards the geological conformation of Jamaica, a glance at a map of America suggests to the mind that the chain of islands which stretch from the south- ern to the northern continent, and enclose,^ within a basin, the Carribbean sea, are a continuation of one of the easterly mountain chains of Equatorial Ame- rica. The smaller islands are the detached points of t he ridge, between whose depressions the ocean flows, while the larger antilles are masses that expand out, anfl rafliate into less elevated lines.— Humboldt, in his Memoir of the Mountain Chains of the Earth, re- marks that their'linear characteristics, serve to elu- i(lat(! many problems in geology and physics which had [)rcviously been considered iiiexplicalde. In |.>ri- L 2