82 Mr. R. C. Taylor on the Geology of Cuba, 



of the distinguishing characters of this old coral rock is that 

 it is for the most part made up of a branching species, which 

 appears to have existed at that time in great profusion, but 

 which we have failed to discover living in the vicinity on the 

 present reef. This ramose coral of the beach, when worn by 

 the action of the waves, reminded me of forms which were 

 nearly similar, which I remember to have seen at the base 

 of the chalk at Hunstanton Cliff in Norfolk, and to which 

 I made reference more than fourteen years ago in an article 

 in the Philosophical Magazine, First Series, vol. lxi. p. 82. 



Our notice of these different aged reefs would be incom- 

 plete did we stop here. We have remarked that there is a dif- 

 ference of level, amounting to full twenty feet, perhaps thirty, 

 between the outer and the inner reef. Now as the coral in- 

 sects do not live above high-water mark, and indeed are sel- 

 dom seen living above the extreme low-water level, and com- 

 monly are several feet below it, it would appear that this an- 

 cient inner reef, which passes inland, was produced under 

 different circumstances of relative elevation of the sea and 

 land ; and that either the sea has been depressed to a depth 

 corresponding with the existing reefs of the coast, or, what is 

 more probable, that the land has been elevated since the con- 

 struction of the old reefs, not only here but at more distant 

 points. 



We have also to note that the Zoophytes differ decidedly in 

 the two reefs, and therefore the circumstances which promoted 

 the growth of genera and species in one case, were changed 

 or were absent in the other. 



Among the Mollusca also of the old reef the greater part, 

 (although common to the seas of these latitudes, like the 

 corals,) consist of different species to those now living in the 

 vicinity of the recent reef, or that are thrown up on the pre- 

 sent beach ; and we looked in vain for some which exist in 

 great profusion, and may be seen living at low water, at the 

 base of the old coral reef. 



We conceived that a further confirmation of the supposed 

 change of level suggested itself in the prevalence of extensive 

 fissures in the old coral bed, where it slopes towards the sea 

 at low water. These cracks, which seem to imply displace- 

 ment and disturbance, may be traced separately many hun- 

 dred feet, commonly running parallel with the coast in an east 

 and west direction. 



Putting these facts together, one is led to conclude that other 

 agents have been in action besides the mere erosion of the ocean 

 waves, or an occasional and temporary elevation of its waters; 

 and although we look to a miK-h less remote date for these 



