The West India Islands are a group of nearly a thousand islands, which form a curve from the south of Florida to the mouth of the Orinoco. These islands vary in size from Spanish Cuba, the size of Ireland, to the smallest rock. Only 54 of them are inhabited. The page 46 greater portion are British colonies, but Spain, France, Holland Den mark, and Sweden are owners of a few islands.

The British West India Islands have a total area of not quite half the size of Ireland, and with a population of about a quarter that of London

You are now about to inspect the exhibits of Tropical Colonies; contrast them with those of Canada, which has a temperate climate.

You will understand their arrangement the better if you remember that,

The West India Islands are divided into The Greater Antilles, of which Jamaica is the only British possession; the Lesser Antilles, and The Bahamas.

The Lesser Antilles are divided into the Windward Islands, so called because they stand out, as it were, to catch the Trade winds, and the Leeward Islands.

The Courts of the Leeward Islands are on the left hand as you enter the Gallery, and represent Dominica, Montserrat, St. Kitts.

The Windward Islands are represented by Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Tobago.

Barbados and Trinidad are geographically Windward Islands, but on account of their size and importance they are not, for governmental purposes, classed with them. The Courts which represent these islands and Jamaica are on your right hand.

Though each Court has distinct features, yet the products common to the West Indies will be found more or less in all the Courts.

To obtain a good general idea of the products of the West Indian Islands, look in the left-hand corner of the Grenada Court, when you will see—Cocoa, sugar, coffee, nutmegs, cloves, cotton, castor oil seeds, capsicum, limes, pine apples, shaddock, tamarinds, fob's tears, plaintain, bread fruit, honey, arnatto, and ground-nuts.

Special Notes.

The Leeward Islands.—Of these St. Kitts, about the size of Jersey, is the most prosperous, and after Barbados is the most cultivated island in the West Indies.

The Windward Islands.—Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Tobago, are not together larger than Glamorganshire. The only flourishing island is Grenada. Specially note the exhibits in the left-hand corner referred to above.

Jamaica is the largest of our West India Islands, and is about the size of Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall together. Jamaica seems resolved to convince the visitor that its rums hold the supremacy! No coffee can beat that grown on the Blue Mountain. Fruit for the American market is now an important export.

Pine apple culture has yielded a profit of £80 an acre. Jamaica is not the great sugar-growing colony it once was. Why? Notice that the Jamaica exhibits are representative exhibits; notice also the ferns, pasted on the Jibe of the lace palm.

Barbados, or Barbadoes, named from the bearded fig-tree, a branch of which is in the Court (L. Barba, a beard).

The island is a little smaller than the Isle of Wight. Sugar is its staple, and in its Court Barbados appears to invite comparison between its own sugar and its enemy, the beet sugar. Fisheries important. Notice the exhibits of cocoa, cassava, yams, and coral. Notice the two curious maps on the wall.

Trinidad has an exceedingly picturesque Court. The island is about half the size of Jamaica, and owes its name to its discovery by Columbus on Trinity Sunday, 1496. Sugar is the staple production, but its Court is characterised by the variety of its exhibits, which show that, not depending on one branch of industry alone, it has not suffered as other West Indian islands have suffered. The planting of cocoa has greatly increased during the last few years.

The large blocks which look like coal are asphalte, from the famous Pitch Lake. This lake, with its ninety acres of pitch, is one of the wonders of the world.

Two hundred and thirty-five specimens of Wood are exhibited.—Notice the fibrous substances; two collections of Butterfies one exhibited by a boy, W. F. Kirton; the other by a girl, Miss Morton.

The Bahamas consist of 29 islands, 661 bays, 2,387 rocks, which stretch from the northern coast of St. Domingo to the eastern coast of Florida. Nassau is the chief town.

The inhabitants of the islands draw their chief spoil from the sea, and neglect the fruit, cotton, and fibrous plants, which they might cultivate with great profit Notice the Sponge, the Star fish, the Coral, the Pearls found in Conch Shells, the Fibres, and the Gorgonias or Sea fans, which are pressed into various shapes.

The sponge exported in 1885 was valued at £58,000.