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Martinique
Sketches.
Martinique is, configuratively, so well as the simple statement that, although less than fifty miles in extreme length, and less than twenty in average breadth, there are upwards of four hundred mountains in this little island, or of what at least might be termed mountains elsewhere. These again are divided and interpeaked, and bear hillocks on their slopes ;—and the lowest hillock in Martinique is fifty metres high. Some of the peaks are said to be totally inaccessible : many mornes are so on one or two or even three sides. Ninety-one only of the principal mountains have been named; and among these several bear similar appellations : for example, there are two MornesRouges, one in the north and one in the south ; and there are four or five Gros-Mornes. All the elevations belong to six great groups, clustering about or radiating from six ancient volcanic centres,—1. La Pelée; 2 . Pitons du Carbet ; 3 . Roches Carrées ;* 4. Vauclin ; 5 . Marin ; 6. Morne de la Plaine. Forty-two distinct mountain-masses belong to the Carbet system alone,—that of Pelée including but thirteen ; and the whole Carbet area has a circumference of 1 2 0 , 0 0 0 metres,—much more considerable than that of Pelée. But its centre is not one enormous pyramidal mass like that of " L a Montagne " : it is marked only by a group of five remarkable porphyritic cones,—the Pitons of Carbet ;—while Pelée, dominating everything, and filling the north, presents an aspect and occupies an area scarcely inferior to those of ^Etna. —Sometimes, while looking at La Pelée, I have won* A l s o called La Barre de VIsle,—a l o n g high m o u n t a i n - w a l l i n terlinking the northern a n d southern system o f r a n g e s , — a n d o n l y t w o metres b r o a d at the summit. T h e " R o c h e s - Carrées " display a g e o l o g i c a l f o r m a t i o n u n l i k e anything d i s c o v e r e d in the rest o f the Antillesian system, e x c e p t i n g in G r e n a d a , — c o l u m n a r o r prismatic basalts. . . . In the plains o f M a r i n curious petrifactions exist ;—I
saw a honey-comb to perfect that the eye alone could scarcely divine the transformation,