VJ'2 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



The beautiful valley of St.-Thoinas-in-the-Vale is almost 

 circular in outline, and its floor has a diameter of ten 

 miles. Its alluvial bottom is largely covered with ('harm- 

 ing fields and villages. The mountainous scenery en- 

 circling it is beyond description. From Ewarton can be 

 seen a band of white limestone rising on the west side of 

 the valley in a gentle arch, and extending for miles toward 

 Moneague. This band has a steep face and is crested by 

 rugged points forming the plateau summit. The culmi- 

 nation of this arch is Mount Diablo. Some ten copious 

 streams drain this valley, and gather into a single arterial 

 outlet, the Rio Cobre, by which they pass to the sea 

 through the narrow gorge of the picturesque Bog Walk 

 canon. These streams have their sources in springs or 

 caverns in lower portions of the hilly borders of the 

 valleys. 



The Clarendon Valley, in the geographic center of the 

 island, is about fifty miles long and twenty-five miles 

 wide. Its longer direction corresponds with that of the 

 axis of the plateau. While this valley is of the same 

 general type and origin as that of St.-Thomas-in-the-Vale, 

 it differs from it in the fact that steep mountains rise 

 from its center like the crown of a hat above the rim, the 

 valley proper being an annular area lying between these 

 mountains and the surrounding white-limestone escarp- 

 ments. The drainage, like that of St.-Thomas-in-the-Vale, 

 concentrates into an arterial trunk known as the Minho, 

 through the canon of which it escapes to the south coast. 



The pouch-like basin of Hector River is almost connected 

 with the northwest end of Clarendon basin, but has no 

 direct outlet to the sea ; they are separated by a barrier 

 of low hills. The stream from which the basin takes its 

 name rises from springs at its west end, and sinks into 

 the limestones to the east. Cave Valley in St. Ann Parish 

 is four miles in diameter, and is separated from the Clar- 

 endon Valley by a limestone ridge less than a mile in 

 width. 



