# Memoir on the Island of Navassa (West Indies)/Introduction

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MEMOIR.
I.—Introduction.
On the 8th of November, 1865, with the Vice President of the Navassa Phosphate Company, John C. Grafflin, Esq., I sailed from Baltimore in the Company's Brig Romance, Captain P. Duncan, to visit the Island of Navassa.
The objects of our visit were manifold.
All the different departments of the management of the Island had to be investigated for the introduction of such ameliorations that might be found useful to the general interests of the concern.
To the Vice President, Mr. Grafflin, it belongs to give to the officers of the Company, on the Island, what credit they deserve for their services.
As it was to be expected from the relative short space of time elapsed since the organization of the Company in September, 1864, many improvements were required for a more effective and economical working of the property.
The storage of provisions and culinary arrangements; the distillation of salt water; the erection of convenient buildings for residence and offices of the Superintendent and Medical Officer; for workshops, stores, and railroad sheds; the railroad construction and equipment; the enlarging and building of wharf facilities; the boating by lighters and other points of minor importance have already been the subject of propositions which have been approved and sanctioned by the action of the Company.
The pressing necessity of enlarging the facilities for working and shipping were most evident during the six weeks we spent on the Island. From four to six vessels were constantly and at the same time in the harbor. During that time two ships, three barks, six brigs, and three schooners were ​loaded and left with full cargoes. This activity has been increasing since we left, requiring a corresponding increase in the number of the laborers, and in all the other branches of the service. To-day the population on the Island consists of 30 white men, officers and mechanics, and 180 black laborers.
After the payment of two semi-annual dividends, out of the earnings of the Company during the first year of its existence, a sum of fifty thousand dollars has been appropriated to carry our propositions into immediate execution.
This large investment of capital will at once, and without injurious delays, allow the Company to follow in the development of its property, the continually rising demand for this most valuable fertilizer, the Phosphatic Guano or Phosphate of Lime found in such vast deposits on the Island of Navassa, situated in the Caribbean Sea, 18° 25′ North latitude, and 75° 5′ longitude West of Greenwich; 33 miles South-west of Hayti, and 72 miles East of Jamaica.
It is an upraised coral Island, with all the cavities in the rock filled with Phosphate of Lime.
All questions connected with the geological character of this formation have such a bearing on the economy of the works, and the real value of the property, that I could not ignore their importance. In recording in the present paper my incomplete observations and the result of my studies, I can but express my deep regret at my want of ability for treating a subject so interesting in its scientific speculations, and so vital to the interests of agriculture.
Fully aware of the importance for the progress of Natural Sciences, of collecting the largest possible number of facts, to elicit more perfect theories, I have endeavored to record in this paper the facts which, at Navassa, camo under my observation. They are mostly a confirmation of the conclusions of the eminent geologists, Sir Ch. Lyell, J. D. Dana, Ch. Darwin, R. J. Nelson, and others who have, during the last years, so minutely described, and so satisfactorily explained the wonders of those immense structures in course of building, in the tropical seas, under our eyes by agglomerations of minute coral zoophytes.
I will not entirely have missed my object, if I have succeeded ​in attracting the scientific attention to this most interesting field of observations presented at the Island of Navassa, or if, from the discussion of the principles established by those great observers, I have deducted some application useful to the development and economy of practical works.