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Rh Perpendicular, with an Early English tower, and contains some interest int; monuments.

WEST HAM, a municipal, county, and parliamentary borough of Essex, England, forming an eastward suburb of London. Pop. (1891) 204,903, (1901) 267,358. The parish stretches north and south from Wanstead and Leyton to the Thames, and east and west from East Ham to the river Lea. It is divided into four wards—Church Street, Stratford-Langthome, Plaistow and Upton. The church of All Saints has a good Perpendicular tower, but the remainder is extensively restored. There are a number of old monuments. In the restoration of 1866 some early mural painting was discovered, and a transition Norman clerestory was discovered, remaining above the later nave. There are several modern churches, and a Franciscan monastery end school (St Bonaventure's). West Ham Park (80 acres) occupies the site of Ham House and park, for many years the residence of Samuel Gurney, the banker and philanthropist. The place was purchased for £25,000, and vested in the corporation of London for the use of the public. Of this amount the Gurney family contributed £10,000 and the corporation the same sum, the remaining £5000 being collected from the inhabitants of West Ham. The house was taken down, and the park was opened in 1874. Mrs Elizabeth Fry lived in a house in Upton Lane, on the confines of her brother's park. In 1762 the number of houses in West Ham parish was stated to be 700, of which "455 are mansions and 245 cottages." Now few large houses remain, but the smaller houses have greatly increased. There are numerous chemical and other manufactures which have been removed from London itself; and the large population can also be traced in part to the foundation of the Victoria and Albert docks at Plaistow. Included within the borough are the extensive railway works of the Great Eastern railway at Stratford. This industrial centre is continued eastward in the urban district of East Ham (pop. 96,018), where the old village church of St Mary Magdalene retains Norman portions. West Ham is governed by a mayor, 12 aldermen and 36 councillors. Area 4683 acres.

At the time of the Conquest West Ham belonged to Alestan and Leured, two freemen, and at Domesday to Ralph Gernon and Ralph Peverel. West Ham village was included in the part which descended to the Gernons, who took the name of Montfichet. The manor of West Ham was settled upon Stratford Langthorne Abbey, founded by William de Montfichet in 1135 for monks of the Cistercian order. The abbey stood in the marshes, on a branch of the Lea known as the Abbey Creek, about ½ m. south of Stratford Broadway. West Ham received the grant of a market and annual fair in 1253. The lordship was given to the abbey of Stratford, and, passing to the crown at the dissolution, formed part of the dowry of Catherine of Portugal, and was therefore called the Queen's Manor. In 1885 the urban sanitary district was erected into a parliamentary borough, returning two members for the northern and southern divisions respectively. It was incorporated in 1886.

 WEST HAVEN, a borough of Orange township. New Haven county, Connecticut, U.S.A., on New Haven Harbor and separated from New Haven by the West river. Pop. (1900) 5247 (893 foreign-born); (1910) 8543. West Haven is served by the New York, New Haven, & Hartford railway. It is mainly a residential suburb of New Haven. There is a public park, and Savin Rock, rising from Long Island Sound, is a summer resort. West Haven was set apart from New Haven in 1822 and was united with North Milford to form the township of Orange; it was incorporated as a borough in 1873.

WEST HOBOKEN, a town of Hudson county. New Jersey, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state,—adjoining Hoboken and Jersey City. Pop. (1890) 11,665; (1900) 23,094, of whom 9119 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 35,403. For transportation facilities the town depends upon the railways serving Hoboken and Jersey City. West Hoboken lies about ¼ m. W. of the Hudson river, occupies a pleasant site somewhat higher than that of its neighbouring municipalities, and commands a fine view of the surrounding country. Among the prominent buildings are a Carnegie library, St Michael's Monastery (containing a theological school), a Dominican Convent, and several fine churches; and there are two Roman Catholic orphanages. The town is an important centre for the manufacture of silk and silk goods; in 1905 the value of these products was $4,211,018. West Hoboken was created a separate township in 1861, from a part of the township of North Bergen, and in 1884 was incorporated as a town.

WESTHOUGHTON, an urban district in the Westhoughton parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 5 m. W.S.W. of Bolton on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 14,377. There are coal mines in the neighbourhood, and the towa possesses silk factories, print-works and cotton mills. Westhoughton before the time of Richard II. was a manor belonging to the abbey of Cockersand. It was confiscated at the Reformation, and since then has been vested in the crown. The army of Prince Rupert assembled on Westhoughton moor before the attack on Bolton.

WEST INDIES, THE, sometimes called the Antilles (q.v.), an archipelago stretching in the shape of a rude arc or parabola from Florida in North America and Yucatan in Central America to Venezuela in South America, and enclosing the Caribbean Sea (615,000 sq. m.) and the Gulf of Mexico (750,000 sq. m. in area). The land area of all the islands is nearly 100,000 sq. m., with an estimated population of about $6 1⁄2$ millions; that of the British islands about 12,000 sq. m. The islands differ widely one from another in area, population, geographical position, and physical characteristics. They are divided into the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Porto Rico), and the Lesser Antilles (comprising the remainder). The Lesser Antilles are again divided into the Windward Islands and Leeward Islands. Geographically, the Leeward Islands are those to the north of St Lucia, and the Windward, St Lucia and those to the south of it; but for administrative purposes the British islands in the Lesser Antilles are grouped as is shown in the table given later.

Geology.—The West Indies are the summits of a submerged mountain chain, the continuation of which towards the west must be sought in the mountains of Honduras. In Haiti the chain divides, one branch passing through Jamaica and the other through Cuba, the Cayman Islands and the Misteriosa Bank. In Das Antlitz der Erde, E. Suess divides the Antilles into three zones: (i) The first or interior zone, which is confined to the Lesser Antilles, is entirely of volcanic origin and contains many recent volcanic cones. It forms the inner string of islands which extends from Saba and St Kitts to Grenada and the Grenadines. The western part of the deep-cleft island Guadeloupe belongs to this zone. (2) The second zone consists chiefly of Cretaceous and early Tertiary rocks. In the west it is broad, including the whole of the Greater Antilles, but in the east it is restricted to a narrow belt which comprises the Virgin Islands (except Anegada), Anguilla, St Bartholomew, Antigua, the eastern part of Guadeloupe and part of Barbados. (3) The third and outermost zone is formed of Miocene and later beds, and the islands which compose it are flat and low. Like the second zone it is broad in the west and narrow in the east. It includes the Bahamas, Anegada, Sombrero, Barbuda and part of Barbados. Geologically, Florida and the plain of Yucatan may be looked upon as belonging to this zone. Neither Trinidad nor the islands off the Venezuelan coast can be said to belong to any of these three zones. Geologically they are a part of the mainland itself. They consist of gneisses and schists, supposed to be Archaean, eruptive rocks. Cretaceous, Tertiary and Quaternary deposits; and the strike of the older rocks varies from about W.S.W. to S.W. Geologically, in fact, these islands are much more, nearly allied to the Greater Antilles and to Central America than they are to the Lesser Antilles; and there is accordingly some reason to believe that the arc formed by the West Indian Islands is really composite in origin. Although the three zones recognized by Suess are fairly clearly defined, the geological history of the Greater Antilles, with which must be included the Virgin Islands, differ considerably from that of the Lesser. In Cuba and Haiti there are schists which are probably of pre-Cretaceous age, and have, indeed, been referred to the Archaean; but the oldest rocks which have yet been certainly identified in the West Indies belong to the Cretaceous period. Throughout the Greater Antilles the geological succession begins as a rule with volcanic tuffs and conglomerates of hornblende-andesite, &c., in the midst of which are intercalated occasional beds of limestone with Rudistes and other Cretaceous fossils. These are overlaid by sediments of terrigenous origin, and the whole series was folded before the deposition of the next succeeding strata. The nature of these Cretaceous deposits clearly indicates the neighbourhood of an extensive area of land