. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. THE MAEIANAS. 275 Fig. 121.—Mariana Archipelago. Scale 1 : 8, of whose cones rise many hundred feet above the sea, while others, failing to reach the surface serve as a foundation for a cro^vn of coralline limestones rising above the surrounding waters. The chain stretches north and south a total distance of about 600 miles, and the seventeen islands with their islets and reefs have a collective area, estimated by Agius at little more than 400, and by Behm and Wagner at scarcely 560 square miles. Guam, or Guahan, the largest island, compri
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. THE MAEIANAS. 275 Fig. 121.—Mariana Archipelago. Scale 1 : 8, of whose cones rise many hundred feet above the sea, while others, failing to reach the surface serve as a foundation for a cro^vn of coralline limestones rising above the surrounding waters. The chain stretches north and south a total distance of about 600 miles, and the seventeen islands with their islets and reefs have a collective area, estimated by Agius at little more than 400, and by Behm and Wagner at scarcely 560 square miles. Guam, or Guahan, the largest island, comprising nearly half the extent of the Avhole group, is continued southwards by the Rosa Bank, which lies on the northern edge of the deepest cavity in this part of the Pacific (2,475 fathoms). North-east of this abyss the soundings of the Challenger show everywhere depths —A/a /774? ^61 /7 u^usr ^n6L éa^^a n- of over 1,500 fathoms. Considered as a range of half-sub- merged mountains the Marianas begin with a few basalt and tufa crests, which in Guam attain a height of from 1,300 to 1,600 feet, dominating the grassy or wooded plateaux, the sandy or argillaceous plains, and steep coastline of this pictur- esque island. Northwards the chain, interrupted at first by a channel thirty miles wide, reappears in Mount Tempin- gan and the rock-bound island of Rota or Sarpan. Then follow Aguijan ; the charm- ing Tinian with its gently undulating hills ; Saypan with two extinct volcanoes at its northern extremity ; Alamagan, whose smoking crater is probably the culminating point of- the archipelago (2,320 feet) ; Pagan, composed of two mountainous islands united at the base, bearing two active and one quiescent vol- cano ; Agrigan with an extinct cone ; and Assumption (2,100 feet), whose fissured flanks still emit vapours. The Uraccas, or Mangas, near the northern extremity of the chain, seem, like the Dedica islets off the north coast of Luzon, to be the remains of a circuit of marine c
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
