Show BARBADOS ISLAND OF VAST RESOURCES barbados Is ono one of the most interesting and least known of the possessions of great britain pear shaped solitary Boli tary farthest east of the west indies barbados generally is accounted the most healthful of the lie group even though it Is tile the most populous country in the world per square mile except china and george washington carried to his bis grave the te marks of smallpox contracted on a i visit there the island there Is but one despite the misleading plural name naine Is 13 but an eighth the size of our ithome island but has bus twice as ai ninny many inhabitants per square mile as our smallest and most densely populated state seldom does a volcano become an asset but volcanic eruptions lime con fri buted largely to the fertility of barbados when the sun was obscured throughout one day in 3 may 1912 the Barba barbadoes dons were panic stricker stricken il but when the gentle ruin rain of mack black dust subsided the deposit was found to be ashes from an eruption of st vincent nearly miles to the west which enriched the soil long before that time though barbados was productive oldest of british colonial pos possessions except newfoundland found land it also was the first in the british empire where sugar cane uns planted its average crop of this now high priced commodity li iq tons it also has bag 2000 acres planted in sea island or long staple stapie cotton raises bunches yearly of the chinese banana and exports molasses one phenomenon of barbados has not been accounted for for years the so called barbados coffin story furnished a mystery which would interest present day psychic investigators in the yard of a church near elstins Olst lna tins town Is a churchyard burial vault hewn from rock and arched with cemented stone A woman was burled buried there in a lend lead coffin according to barbadian Bar badan custom several years later when the vault was opened again to receive another body the coffin had been removed from its original position upon the second occasion special precautions were taken to seal the vault several times thereafter though seals were unbroken and there seemed no other mode of entering the solid rod and masonry the coffins were displaced finally the mouth of the vault was cemented and when it was mas time to receive another body officials of tho island and an immense crowd gathered for the cere mony mon once moro more all the leaden cask eta were found to have been disturbed and the family had their dead removed to arlot another ber burying ground no satisfactory solution of these strange stange occurrences curren ces lias has been offered oH A natural curiosity of barbados Is the animal flower cave the so called flowers being sea worms not so agreeable are tae e or poison trees along the shores elwe x leaves blister the skin and contaminate ta the water |