CORISCO  , the name of a

bay and an island on the Guinea Coast, West Africa . The bay is bounded N. by Cape San Juan (1° 1o' N.) and S. by Cape Esterias (o° 36' N.), and is about 31 M. across, while it extends inland some 15 M . The bay is much encumbered with sandbanks, which impair its value as a harbour . Whereas the Muni river or estuary, which enters the bay on its northern side, has a maximum depth of over too ft., vessels entering it have to come by a channel with an average depth of sii'fathoms . The entrance to the southern part of the bay is obstructed by the Bana Bank, which extends for 9 m., renderingnavigation dangerous . The bay encloses many small islands and islets, some hardly distinguishable from sandbanks and submerged at high water, giving rise to a native saying that " half the islands live under water." The principal islands are four, Bana, Great and Little Elobey, and Corisco, the last-named lying farthest to seaward and giving its name to the bay . Corisco Island, the largest of the group, is some 3 M. long by m. in breadth and has an area of about 52 sq. m . The surface of the island is very diversified . On a miniature scale it possesses mountains and valleys, rivers, lakes, forests and swamps, grass-land and bushland, moorland and parkland . The forests supply ebony and logwood for export . The natives are a Bantu-Negro tribe called Benga . There are among them many converts to Roman Catholicism and a few Protestants .

Corisco and the other islands named are

Spanish possessions and are governed as dependencies of Fernando Po . See Mary H . Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, ch. xvii . (London, 1897); E . L . Perea, "Guinea espanola: La isla de Corisco," in Revista de geog. colon. y mercantil (Madrid, 1906) .