120 



BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPAEATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



effect of the extensive erosion to vvuich they have been subjected. The 

 terraces becop- "udis.ct after w6 pr ,he first point beyond Baracoa. 

 The vegetation is very dcuse, and nothing can be seen from the sea 

 indicating the successive hnes of former elevation. But the shape of 

 the hills — vrorn into sadd'- s, into peaks, into isolated cones, forming 

 indistinct ranges more or less parallel to the coast — sufficiently shows 

 how great has been the effect of the erosion on the limestone hills. Be- 

 tween Baracoa and Mangle Point the whole country is broken up into 

 disconnected bits of hills, those nearest the shore being from six hundred 

 to nine hundred feet high. A careful study of the cross breaks of the 

 shore hills might reveal some limestone faces, and throw light on the 

 age and succession of the limestone belt which covers so great a part of 

 the coast of Cuba from Bai'acoa to Cape San Antonio. Here and there 

 along the coast we may recognize — as, for instance, near the Saddle of 

 Bay, in the range of hills nearest the shore — the second and third ter- 

 races. To the west of the Sierra de Moa, near Cayo Grande de Moa, 

 begins a series of saddles and peaks culminating in the Cuchillas del 



CUCHILLAS DEL PINAL. 



Pinal, which seem, as seen from the sea, a series of gigantic ant-heaps 

 and disconnected saddle-like ridges, showing the great eftect of erosion in 

 this district. We could see the eroded shore hills flanking the Sierra de 

 Cristal, and the low shore extending past the ports of Cabonico, Livisa, 

 and Nipe, all fine examples of the flask-shaped harbors of Cuba. To the 

 eastward of Livisa indistinct traces of the third terrace could be seen. 



TERRACES AND ENTRANCE TO NIPE. 



It was not till we faced the entrance to Nipe that we once more clearly 

 traced in the spit to the westward the first, second, and third terraces. 

 To the eastward of the entrance the second terrace was well defined. 



