WEST INDIA ISLANDS or WEST INDIES. The archipelago that includes the Great and Lesser Antilles and the Bahamas has a total land area of bout 92,000 square miles— more than twice the size of Pennsylvania; the islands are, however, dispersed far and wide over a region continental in size, which extends from tat. 10' N. to 28' N. and from long. 58* W. beyond 85° W. For the geographical subdivi sions of the main groups, sec Annum and BAHAMAS; for the geologic relations of some of them to the mainland portions of the Antil lean continent, see CeteraAt AMFMICA and CA 11/111EAS Sea; and for the characteristic features of the Great Antilles see the separate articles CuRA, etc.
To pass from a western to an eastern point in this archipelago, one may he obliged to sail about 2,000 miles; and to pass from its ernmost to its southernmost island one must sail more than 1,500 miles. This wide sion is the fact which should be first noted. The next step is to realize fully the disiunctive political conditions, the results of the tion of the islands among a number of ing nations. Let us now consider the political subdivisions. The British possessions are: The Bahamas, including 20 inhabited and many desert islands; Jamaica, with Turks and Caicos etc.; Windward Islands, including Grenada (the governor's residence), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines bados, east of the Windward Islands; Trinidad and Tobago, near the South American coast; and the Leeward Islands, comprising Antigua with Barbuda and Redenk), the Virgin Islands, Saint Kitts (Saint Christopher), Nevis, Anguilla, Dominica and Montserrat. The total area of the British West India islands is 12,631 square miles (4,431 in Jamaica and its dependent smaller islands). The exchange of ratifications of a treaty between Denmark and the United States on 17 January 1917 had the effect of transferring to the latter the small islands of Saint Thomas, Saint Croix or Santa Cruz and Saint John, with a total area of 139 square miles and a total population of about 27,000. The amount paid by the United States for these Danish islands (the possession of which in sures substantial control of the Virgin Passage through the Lesser Antilles) was $25,000,000.
French possessions are and its de pendencies, and Martinique, their total area being about 1,073 square miles and total popu lation about 406,430, combined exports about $9,400,000 and imports about $8,300,000. A French and Dutch possession is the island of Saint Martin, 38 square miles in area, of which it has been well said: 'The political complex ion of Saint Martin is peculiar. Seventeen square miles of the northern section belong to France and the rest to Holland, while the set tlers, largely blacks, are principally British, who outnumber both the Dutch and French. About 3,000 of the inhabitants are in the French por tion of the island, and 5,000 in the Dutch' (Hilts Cuba and Porto Rico, etc.); further more, 'each maintains an administrative force as large as that of the State of Texas.' The Dutch possessions — fragments on opposite sides of the Caribbean Sea— are the islands of Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire or Buen Ayre, Saint Eustache, Saba and part of Saint Martin, as just stated. Venezuelan possessions are some of the islands, not appropriated by the English or Dutch, in the east-and-west line between Trini dad and the Gulf of Maracaibo. The list is completed by adding Cuba and the Isle of Pines, a republic, subject in certain matters to the control of the United States: Porto Rico, with the small neighboring islands, a possession of the United States; and Santo Domingo, or Haiti, with adjacent small islands. Mr. Hill's observation in 1898 was that, 'As we sail down the eastern islands, hardly a score in number . . . we find five foreign flags and no less than a dozen distinct colonial govern ments . . . with no shadow of federation between them, or even co-operation of any kind.' For example, Dominica, though lying between Guadeloupe and Martinique, and with in sight of both, is commercially farther from them than from England, because it is cut off from the French neighbors by tariff and quar amine laws.