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Antigua and Barbuda and Their Bank Let it be imagined that a composite volcanic island of good size passes through all the stages of a first-cycle sequence, so that after complete submergence it is crowned by an oval atoll reef 50 miles in longer diameter; that the atoll is then tilted in such a manner that it is elevated at the southern and depressed at the northern end; that the tilted atoll is, during and after its tilting, almost re-leveled by the degrading of its raised southern area to low relief, and by the aggrading of its depressed northern area to a shallow bank; that the uptilted part is, during these changes, again characterized by slow subsidence, reef upgrowth, and lagoon aggradation; and that, thus remodeled, it recently suffered the effects of low-level abrasion. The new island thus developed in the uptilted, degraded, and partly resubmerged area of the former atoll would exhibit a beveled section of the atoll under-structure; and if the uptilting and degrading were of sufficient measure, part of the volcanic foundation of the atoll would be laid bare beneath its limestone cover. It is believed that Antigua (pronounced Antíga by its inhabitants), 16 by 13 miles, 1330 feet high, is an island of such origin, and that it therefore exemplifies a well advanced stage in a second cycle of development following the final or atoll stage of a first cycle; for its beveled strata, dipping with considerable regularity 10° or 15° to the northeast, are volcanic below and calcareous above. The present bank is very narrow on the south; it extends five miles to the southeast, ten miles to the northwest, and 50 miles to the northeast and bears near its farther end the low limestone island of Barbuda, twelve by seven miles in extent and 112 feet high; it thus exemplifies an advanced stage in the production of a bank of second generation by the aggradation of the down-tilted part of the first-cycle atoll, just as Antigua exemplifies the development of an island of second generation by the degradation of the uptilted part. Whether the uptilted Antigua area is bounded on the southwest by a submarine fault or by a sharp flexure cannot be determined by the soundings now charted. Home