GEOLOGY OF JAMAICA-NEGRO CULTIVATION. must have been exercised to enable a negro to lay by out of his small earnings sufficient for the purchase of a piece of land, which once obtained, he never tires in improving, and never parts with but for a larger or better homestead. The free villages are very beneficial to the sugar or coffee estates in their vicinity, provided the owners or managers manifest a | kindly spirit towards the peasantry, who are glad to work four or five days a week for hire, in order that they may add to their money acquisitions for the purchase of clothes, or to invest in the improvement or extension of their own little properties. Gradually they are adding to their marketable and exportable products; coffee, pimento, ginger, arrow-root, cocoanuts, wax, and honey, are now in this list, to which it is to be hoped cotton may soon be added.† Nor is it only as cottier proprietors that the industry of the negro is manifested; when unable, from want of funds or other causes, to purchase a legal right to land, they often settle as "squatters" on the mountains, where I have seen them in secluded dells and on the steep slopes of hills, cutting down the forests, burning the brushwood, planting potatoes and maize, creating gardens in the wilderness, and toiling with an energy and continuousness that gave the fullest contradiction to the assertion, of the Jamaica negro creole being indolent, or at best fitful, in his work. 87 The diffusion of the white limestone is very extensive; it constitutes whole ranges of hills, as in the parishes of Manchester, St. Catherine, St. Thomas-inthe-Vale, and St. Ann's, also the Long Mountain near Kingston; pervading, in fact, nearly all the midland, and by far the greater portion of the whole island. I is characterized by being hollowed into innumerable holes and cavities, among which the falling rains immediately disappear; hence arises the general scarcity of springs, the occasional sinking of rivers in districts principally composed of these rocks, and the necessity the inhabitants experience for the construction of tanks. The Port Royal and St. Andrew mountains are composed of white limestone, porphyry, sienite, greenstone, red porphyritic, conglomerate and silicious sandstones, with red sandstones and conglomerates of an older date. Rounded pieces of all these rocks form the diluvial gravel of Liguanea Plain. The surface of St. Catherine Plain, or Vega, consists, for the most part, of an earthy clay; the immediate substratum is generally a silicious sand of varying depth. Beneath the sand is a blue clay-overlying strata, in which are water springs. The talus of the neighbouring hills is fragmentary limestone, mingled abundantly with a red friable earth, highly charged with oxide of iron. A black carbonate of iron, in the form of ferruginous sand, may be always observed in the water-courses of the streets of Spanish Town after rain-floods. On some parts of the banks of the river Cobre, a humid brick mould formed from disintegrated trap rocks, lies to a considerable depth; in this mould small particles of ous. The pebbles within the stream are composed of angular masses of black basalt, green serpentine with mottlings of white, a brown grit, and pebbles of porphyry, and compact limestone. The detrital washings of these rocks compose the river sand. GEOLOGY.-The lowest formation of the island, according to the observations of a distinguished geologist (Sir Henry de la Bêche), consists of a slaty schist; above it blue limestone, next grauwacke, sur-gold are found, and the river soil is slightly aurifermounted by red sandstone with seams of clay. More recent investigators assert that the base of Jamaica is porphyry, sienite, and greenstone, supporting deposition and transition rocks. White and blue limestone abound, as does also quartz of different varieties. The lower mountains, near Kingston, are principally composed of a whitish bastard marble, of a smooth even grain, which takes a good polish; it is frequently used as limestone. In some places a kind of ribbon rock is observable, formed of alternate pophyry, trap, hornstone, and petro-silex; in other localities basalts appear in strata, under cover of different incumbent rocks, and are also found in amorphous masses, but never in the columnar form, which they are supposed to assume only on being exposed to sudden refrigeration, by the action of the external air, and when freed from the pressure of incumbent rocks. * It is really wonderful what a degree of economy and intelligence these people manifest in making the most of their limited means, and the results of this earnestness will probably in a few years become very striking. On a space of from two to five acres (the average of negro properties being about three) may be seen an extraordinary variety of the tropical trees, most prized for their fruit, as well as eminently conspicuous for their beauty. There is the tall and graceful cocoa-nut; different kinds of the citron tribe, with evergreen foliage, golden fruit, and delicately white and fragrant blossoms; the star-apple, with parti-coloured leaves of shining green on one side, and on the other of a bright bay; the papaw, whose large fruit has the singular property of rendering tender the toughest meat, by a few drops of its juice; the mango, which, though introduced at no very distant period, now towers around every homestead; and the bread-fruit, with its enormous leaves eighteen inches in length, and bunches of fruit of proportionate size. Rows of young plantain trees rise from amid the verdant carpet formed by the broad leaves of the coco (cocolasia esculenta), and in another part of the ground, Crystalline spar, in small detached masses, is seen in various parts of the island; rock-spar, very clear, and in masses of great size, is obtainable in the mountains of St. Ann, where it constitutes entire strata. Mixed and purplish coloured schist is common in the mountains of St. John, and also the hard lamellated amianthus, in a form resembling petrified wood. Argillaceous slate forms a considerable feature in the Blue Mountains, but the greater part of the higher range appeared to me to be trappean. The united action of heat and pressure has formed several conglomerates. The convulsive submarine impulses which the island has received, have greatly the luxuriant yam twines its slender stems up tall poles, while melons and gourds trail along the surface. A little patch of sugar-cane occupies one corner; a few bunches of the castor oil plant, or of the cassava, another, with two or three cotton trees-not the lowland giant of that name, but the Malvaceous shrub that here throws out its snowy bunches of genuine cotton. A small tract, carefully cultivated and kept free from weeds, is usually exclusively devoted to the growth of those useful and closely-allied plants, arrow-root and ginger, each consisting of succulent green shoots, formed by the sheathing leaves, and the former displaying handsome heads of scaly flowers. † A poor man in Jamaica has recently invented a "gin," for separating the wool from the seed, of such simple and cheap construction, as to induce the House of Assembly to give the inventor a small sum of money in acknowledgment of this useful exercise of his mechanical genius, I saw this simple but effective machine tried by the intelligent Speaker of the Assembly, Mr. M'Larty Morales, who stated that he was devoting a portion of his estate to the cultivation of cotton. 88 MINERALOGY-RICH AND VARIED SOIL. disrupted the several formations, and changed the horizontal continuity of various masses. When Sir Henry de la Bêche wrote his able sketch of the geology of Jamaica, the science, to whose progress he has so largely contributed, was comparatively new, and the island was, as it is even now, but imperfectly examined. Mr. Richard Hill, of Spanish Town, who has done much to illustrate this as well as other portions of the natural history of his native land, thinks that Dr. Darwin's sections of the Andes, some four times repeated, would correctly delineate the geology of Jamaica. Fossil corals are imbedded in the chalky white limestone, and the teeth of sharks have been found at Bath estate, in the parish of Westmoreland, and at or near Prospect estate, in the parish of Portland. Similar fossil teeth have been obtained at Malta, and in the United States of America, being, in some instances, six inches long, and five wide at the base. The white shark, and other large species of the gerus carcharias productus, and carcharodon, which possess cutting triangular teeth, crenated (finely notched) on their margins, with a broad base, and respectively hollow or solid in the centre, are at the present time known to attain a size of forty feet; but this magnitude is far inferior to that attributable to the extinct species, which, judging from the teeth found in the tertiary deposits of this, and other countries above alluded to, must have been from 60 to 100 feet in length.-(Jamaica Monthly Magazine, June, 1838.) bright yellow, and remarkable for a shining surface when first turned up, and for staining the skin like paint when wetted; it appears to consist mainly of a chalky marl, containing a large proportion of calcareous matter; the earth, termed "brick mould," is deep and mellow, on a retentive under strata; this, next to the ash mould of St. Christopher's, is considered the best soil in the West Indies for the sugar-cane. A red earth abounds most in the hilly lands, and a purple loam, sometimes mixed with a sandy soil, in the savannas and low lands. The principal soils on the interior hills and mountains may be thus enumerated-a red clay on a white marl; a red clay on a grit; a reddish brown clay on marl; a yellowish clay, mixed with common mould; a red grit; a loose shelly mould; a black mould on a clay or other substrate; a loose black vegetable mould on rock; a fine sand; and varieties of all the foregoing, The mountain-land, even to the highest summits, when first cleared of wood, possesses more or less a deep surface of rich black mould mixed with shells; a soil which will grow anything. The brick mould (a compound of very fine particles of clay, sand, and black mould), is even more productive, but far less extensively distributed. It is often of great depth, easily laboured, and so inexhaustible as scarcely to require manure; during droughts it retains sufficient moisture to preserve the cane-root from perishing, and in very wet seasons it suffers the superfluous waters to percolate, so that the roots are never in danger of being rotted; next in fecundity is the MINERALOGY.-The geological formation of Ja- black shell mould, previously mentioned, which owes maica indicates the presence of metals- among its fertility to the mineral salts and exuviæ interwhich may be named gold, silver, copper, lead, mingled with it. The soil about Kingston, on the and iron-all of which have been found in the Liguanea Plain, consists of a layer of deep mould, neighbouring islands of Cuba and Hayti. Long chiefly composed of decayed vegetable matter, with says (vol. ii., p. 240,) that "it is very certain" the a proportion of marl and some carbonate of lime, Spaniards obtained both gold and silver here; and entirely free from gravel, and highly absorbent of adds "the bells which hung in the great church at water: the substratum varies, being sometimes a St. Jago de la Vega, when the English took posses- compact aluminous earth alone, in other places sion, were cast of copper produced in the island." mixed with gravel; in sinking a shaft, layers of "Lead ore likewise abounds here, richly aluminous earth and gravel are found, running impregnated with silver." A silver mine is said to horizontally, approaching to pure clay at the bothave been worked by the Spaniards in the Health- tom, and at four feet from the surface a strata of shire Hills, in St. Catherine's, and ruins of works are finely pulverized silica. Around Stony Hill, the found in several places, some arched with brick, and surface is similar to what is frequently met with in having regular paved or flagged galleries. Copper elevated situations in Jamaica, namely, a rich dark has recently been discovered, widely scattered in mould, varying in depth from two to twenty inches, small deposits, but not as yet in any continuous vein, with a substratum of argillaceous and red earth, yielding a steady supply. Owing to the great contor- evidently containing a mixture of carbonate of iron; tions caused by earthquakes, and other subterranean and in many parts the surface of the ground studded action, the lodes appear to have been disrupted, and with limestones of a very large size. Mica frequently the ore dispersed in masses of various size. In occurs, especially among the hills between St. Catherichness, it is equal to any found in Cuba or in Aus-rine's Parish and Sixteen Mile-Walk, and when tralia, and especially so as regards the grey carbonate, which has been ascertained to contain 60 to 70 per cent. of pure copper. The blue carbonate and the sulphates are also rich, and gold and silver have been traced, mingled with different varieties of the ore. Several companies are now searching for a continuous and available lode, of which the miners entertain confident hopes. Judging from the copper I saw myself in the Blue Mountain range, and its collateral buttresses, and that obtained from other localities, there is a fair field open for enterprise; if successful, the result must be advantageous to the island by drawing labour thither and furnishing a profitable article of export. THE SOIL is of various descriptions, differing in depth and fertility. On the north side of the island it is generally of a chocolate colour, in other parts a washed down with the floods may be easily mistaken for golden sand: near Spanish Town it is found incorporated with potter's clay. CLIMATE.-Although situated within the tropics, extraordinary varieties of temperature characterize different parts of the island, occasioned by distinct degrees of elevation, position north or south of the dividing range, and exposure to the winds on the eastern or western coast. At Kingston, the medium temperature throughout the year is 80°. The heat is mitigated by sea and land breezes, and by the dense canopy which masses of cloud occasionally interpose between the almost vertical rays of the sun and the earth. The difference between the heat of the coast districts and that of the elevated regions in the interior may be illustrated in the range of the thermometer (F.) at Up-Park Camp, near Kingston, CLIMATE, SEASONS, TEMPERATURE, AND AMOUNT OF RAIN. 89 Note.-Fractions of degrees omitted. In examining the above table, it must be borne in mind that although 80° of Fahrenheit's thermometer does not denote an oppressive degree of heat (for the mercury frequently attains that height in England during the summer months); yet every degree beyond that point is felt by the human frame in a greatly increased ratio. At Pleasant Hill the mercury reached 81' during only one month in the year; at Up Park Camp, it ranged to 84° every month, and for two months to 89'; the difference at the hottest period is very material, inasmuch as it makes the distinction between an enjoyable and a very trying temperature. I have often experienced, in different parts of the globe, the rapid diminution of temperature consequent upon exchanging a lowland for a highland climate, but never more remarkably than in this part of Jamaica. In the middle of May I left the hospitable mansion of Mr. Atkinson at 6 A.M., after a restless and feverish night on the plain of Liguanea, not far from Up-Park Camp; and at noon, under the guidance of a kind friend, reached Pleasant Hill, part of the journey having been performed in a carriage, and the remainder on mules, over narrow mountain roads, down steep declivities, across the rapid Yallahs River, and amid grand, picturesque, and ever varying scenery. The change of climate was delicious, the air cool, fragrant with the white and red rose, and perfumed with the orange blossom; on the Liguanea Plain during the previous night the lightest covering had been scarcely bearable, yet at Pleasant Hill a couple of blankets were agreeable. At Abbey Green, about 5,000 feet above the sea, the highest habitation, and coffee plantation in the island, a fire during the evenings in June was acceptable. Mr. Coppard, the proprietor of this estate, is a good specimen of rude health, and as active and energetic as if still dwelling in his native county of Sussex; never, in fact, feeling ill, though all day out of doors. On the 21st May, I rode thirty miles in the mountains, and was on horseback ten hours, without suffering much fatigue, a day's work not easily accomplishable in the lowlands. At Stony Hill, nine miles from Kingston, and 2,000 feet above the sea, the thermometer is generally, during the hot months, 74° at 6 A.M., 82° at 2 P.M., and 80° at 6 P.M.; during the cold months * Excellent potatoes, peas, and other English vegetables, including carrots of large size, are cultivated here in great perfection. DIV. VIII. at corresponding hours, 68, 75, and 73°; in November and December, when the north winds prevail, the mercury falls as low as 66° Fahrenheit. At Maroon Town, formerly Trelawney, situated on a high mountain between the parishes of Westmoreland and St James, the thermometer seldom or ever rises higher than 71 or 722 at noon, falling during the night and early part of the morning as low as 50° and 52°. The troops stationed here, have for several years, enjoyed excellent health; and, in 1795, when the yellow fever was at its height in Jamaica, a newly raised regiment, the 83rd, did not lose a man from this malady. The four seasons may be described as that of vernal or moderate rains, in April and May, lasting six weeks; the summer hot and dry, including June, July, and August; the autumn, the dreaded period of hurricane and heavy rains, often lasting through September, October, and November; and the winter serene and cool, comprising December, January, February, and March. Considerable allowance must, however, be made for the differences occasioned by aspect and local circumstances, between places on the northern or on the southern side of the island; the winter is always longer on the former coast:-westerly winds prevail at this season over the whole space between Jamaica and Cuba, and even as far as Hayti. Hurricanes have several times ravaged different parts of the colony. On the 3rd of October, 1780, a terrific storm destroyed an immense quantity of property; in one parish alone the damage was estimated at £700,000. The town of Savanna-la-Mar was entirely swept away by the sea, and 300 persons perished. Several men-of-war foundered, were wrecked, or dismasted. The merchants of Kingston subscribed £10,000, and the British Parliament voted £40,000 for the relief of the sufferers. Rain, the quantity which falls during some seasons is enormous. The northern side of the island receives smaller but more frequent showers. I have vainly a larger amount than the southern, distributed in which has of late years fallen at Kingston or Spanish endeavoured to procure returns of the quantity Town. At Manchioneal the quantity which fell from 1831 to 1839, dividing the early or May from the latter, or September rains, is thus shown Sir Hans Sloane states the amount at Spanish Town, in 1688, to have been upwards of 100 inches. Long, in 1774, makes it much less, and considers that 65 to 70 inches is about the annual mean for the whole island. At Newcastle barracks the annual fall is found to be 70 inches. Even this measurement, compared with that of climates in the temperate zone, is very large; for example, only 35 inches fell in England, in 1852, yet this was the largest quantity registered in any twelve months during the previous forty years. N GREAT LONGEVITY AND GOOD HEALTH ENJOYED IN JAMAICA. escapes Upper Canada, and the north-west states of the 1833. It reached Cuba, where the mortality was That the climate is not inimical to the human DISEASES.-Yellow, or continued fever, has, on constitution is evident from the long lives and good several occasions, afflicted Jamaica; other forms of health enjoyed by Europeans and negroes of regular the same malady, of a typhoid, remittent, and interand moderate habits; and indeed a degree of intem-mittent character, together with dysentery, diarrhoea, perance, which in many countries would be speedily rheumatism, and influenza, are the most prevalent followed by death or disease, here often and long disorders extant. The negroes, owing to poor diet with comparative impunity. Governor Mody- and unhealthy locations, suffer greatly from cutaneous ford, in a letter to the secretary of state, Lord Arl- eruptions, ulcers, and yaws, a species of leprosy. ington, dated 1665, observes, with regard to the Recently the island has been severely visited by healthiness of the island, "really, my lord, no man cholera, which chiefly attacked the coloured popuhath died but an account hath been given-y't e gott lation; very few white persons died, although freely his decease either by surfeitts or travelling at high mingling with the sick. The progress of this formidnoone in a hott day-or being wett with rain, and able epidemic in the West Indies, and in the New not changing in season. The Spaniards, at their World, is worthy of chronological record :first coming, (I mean those who trade with the Royall 1832.-Cholera appeared at Quebec, Montreal, Company) wondered much at the sickness of some of our people; but when they understood of the strength of their drinks, and the great quantity they charged themselves with, and the little observation of times and seasons, they told me they wondered more they were not all dead." There have been several instances of whites, mulattoes, and negroes attaining a great age in the island. Colonel Montague James, the first white person born in Jamaica after its conquest from the Spaniards, lived to the age of 104; it is stated that for the last thirty years of his life he took scarcely any other food than chocolate.* Long says he knew three white inhabitants of the island who were upwards of 100 years of age, and he speaks of others living when he wrote his work, who were beyond ninety. These persons, he says, were not decrepit; they were able to stir about, had good appetites, and moderately sound faculties. Among the numerous instances of longevity among the coloured people, the following are well attested. A negress who arrived in Jamaica four days after the destruction of Port Royal, died in 1834, aged at least, 148 years. Another lived to the age of 151, and in the early part of 1850, a black man died on the property of Mr. Justice MacDougal, who had attained 130 years. A creole negro, well known as "Old Hope," who was baptized shortly before his death, on 31st May, 1815, by the name of Roger Hope Elletson, lived upwards of 140 years. He was full six feet high, and must have possessed great vigour; twelve months before his demise he could walk from Hope estate to Kingston (between six and seven miles) and back in the same day. His head was well covered with hair, very slightly tinged with grey; he had lost one eye by an accident, but the sight of the other was perfect, and he retained some of his teeth to the last. All his other senses were good, and his mental faculties unimpaired. He had never been ailing, never drunk rum or any ardent spirit, was never treated with harshness or severity, but had always had good masters and overseers. In the early part of 1819, he began to decline by imperceptible gradations, and quietly expired without any bodily pain or mental anxiety, on Whit Monday, 31st May, 1819. There are perhaps few other parts of the globe where an African, Creole, and European population can, within the same limited space, find climates adapted to sustain the peculiar energies, and preserve the healthy condition of each race. * See Bryan Edwards' History of the West Indies, and also Dr. Binn's Essay on Cocoa and Chocolate, in Simmonds' Colonial Magazine, vol. ii. p. 210. Derived from an account printed in H.M. printing office, Kingston, 1819. See Valuable Report of Dr. Milroy to H.M. Secretary of State, in 1852. | 1835.-It still lingered in the southern states of 1850.-(March), Cuba was attacked; in June, Mexico and the Mexican coast; also the North American cities, especially the southern ones; the President died at Washington of the disease.‡ On 7th October of this year, the fearful pestilence appeared in Port Royal; on the 9th, at Kingston: and on the 18th, at Spanish Town. Thence it spread over different parts of the island, raging particularly at such places as invited the pestilence by their marshy or uncleanly state, as previously shown in the topography. The great amount of sickness, and the rapid destruction of life which attended it, caused an almost complete prostration of the industrial pursuits of the colony, a very enhanced price for labour, and even the abandonment of many estates. At Bath and Plantain Garden River districts, in the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East, which contains numerous sugar estates, the population was estimated at 8,000; of these 1,708 were swept off in a few weeks. According to returns laid before the House of Assembly, 1851-'2, the numbers who perished by this fearful scourge are thus stated-(from George, Metcalfe, Catherine, and Ann parishes, the returns are imperfect; and the mortality has been guessed at):-Kingston, 3,675; St. Andrew, 2,012; Port Royal, 474; St. David, 802; St. Thomas-in-the-East, 2,626; Portland, 305; St. George, 800; Metcalfe, 1,345; St. Catherine, 2,400; Dorothy, 358; Vere, 782; Clarendon, 892; Manchester, 20; St. Ann, 1,531; St. Mary, 2,319; St. HEALTH OF THE WHITE AND COLOURED TROOPS IN JAMAICA. 91 John, 566; St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, 1,300; St. Elizabeth, 347; Westmoreland, 1,140; Hanover, 1,520; St. James, 2,567; Trelawney, 2,259. Total, 30,590. Dr. Milroy estimates the aggregate deaths at between forty and fifty thousand, and considers that a fifth of the population was attacked with the severe form of the disease. The following is an abstract of the remarks made by him in commenting on the absence of the most ordinary sanitary precautions on the part of the local authorities: : are now few, if any, men of eminence throughout the There is not a district in the island in which very numerous deaths are not continually taking place, which, in all human probability, might have been prevented by timely assistance. There are no means of ascertaining correctly the death-rate in any part of the island: with the exception of a pretty accurate register of the burials in the burying-grounds of the Church of England, all is confusion and mere conjecture. In 1844, the local legislature passed an Act for registering births and deaths; but no measures beyond that of awarding salaries were taken to ensure its enforcement; so worthless has it proved, that during the year ending September, 1850, only 20 births and no fewer than 700 deaths were entered in Kingston. Entire parishes and extensive districts, with a scattered population of many thousand souls, have, for several years past, been left with out a medical man. Most of the parishes (some of which are as large as an English county) have not an hospital or a dispensary; and it is admitted on all hands, that the destitution of medical relief is one of the most serious social evils in the present condition of the community; but there seems no likelihood of a remedy being provided where the defect can alone be supplied, viz., by the Assembly or representatives of the people in the colony; in 1846, they passed a Dispensary Act; but within two or three years of its enactment it became a dead letter. Among other flagrant abuses, especial mention is made of the disgraceful and immoral state of the leper or yaw huts, and the revolting practice of burying the dead in the plots or gardens around dwellings, not unfrequently within a few yards of the door, and this, sometimes, in the very pre-In cincts of the towns. The number of troops stationed in the island during the year ending March, 1851, was 1,770, of whom 756 were white and 1,014 black; average number of officers, 73; 29 of the white, including one officer, and 99 of the black died, during the year of cholera. The mortality among the Europeans was formerly very great. Dr. Wahab stated, in 1833, that he had examined the returns at Up Park Camp, and found that in fifty years 48,000 soldiers had perished. Between 1812 and 1836 the deaths among European troops amounted to 8,326 men. missions into hospital during the period were more than twelve times the number of deaths, and the invalidings were very numerous: thus, in 1819, 754 died out of 2,969 = 25.4 per cent.; in 1825, it was 29.3 per cent., 777 men having died out of 2,644. The ad 1827, out of 3,083 men 636 perished, viz., 20.6 per cent. This destruction of life, and the pecuniary loss It would be folly to seek, in secondary causes, an entailed upon the state, each soldier being valued at explanation of the deplorable sanitary state of Ja- £100, were among the evils and burthens which slamaica, and of evils which years of patient, well- very occasioned. The death of 754 soldiers was equidirected effort, can alone remedy. "Happily there valent to a drain on the British exchequer of £75,400. Return showing the Average Strength, Admissions into Hospital at all the Stations, and Deaths, of the White and Black Troops in Jamaica for ten years. White Troops. Black Troops. Note.-Jamaica, White troops, 1.711 per 1,000 of mean strength admitted annually. died annually. admitted annually. 19 per 1,000 " died annually. |