274 BULLETIN OF THE 



been disconnected by erosion, while the intervening valleys are cut down 

 to the metamorphic floor. The Tetas de Managua are of similar nature 

 and origin. 



The Santiago Levels. — Mr. James P. Kimball has published a paper 

 entitled " Geological Relations and Genesis of the Specidar Iron Ores of 

 Santiago de Cuba," ^ which gives valuable details concerning the occur- 

 rences of terraces on the south coast of the east end of the island in the 

 vicinity of Santiago and Guautanamo. Concerning these he speaks as 

 follows : — 



" The immediate coast presents a remarkable development of coral rock, or 

 coral limestone, in three terraces, of which the upper is about 350 feet above 

 the sea. The second terrace is at an altitude of about 175 feet, and the present 

 shore, a plateau of comparatively recent elevation, about fourteen feet above 

 tide. These terraces mark successive elevations of the Sierra Maestra ranse. 

 These stages of elevation were in direct, but probably remote, succession with 

 other elevations which I shall show to be indicated by traces of more ancient 

 corallines (coral formations) about two miles still farther back from the present 

 coast. 



" The last terrace, or that of the present shore, falls away vertically into deep 

 water soundings, at the mouth of the Carpintero, 150 feet off shore, giving a 

 depth of 165 feet. It retains to a remarkable degree the structure of solid reef, 

 studded with distinct forms of coral, and is strewn with fragments of coral 

 rounded by the waves, but in good preservation, and numbering a large vari- 

 ety of species." 



He also shows that traces of the old limestones are found in the high 

 flanks of the Sierra Maestra. Of these he says : — 



" The several terraces of recent coralline mark, as already- indicated, succes- 

 sive and in chronological order the later uplifts of the Sierra, in vertical range 

 not less than five hundred feet. These, together with the series of corallines 

 of the second line of foot-hills, as recognized by the bodies of hematite and 

 marble, are proofs of a sum of uplifts of not less than thirteen hundred feet. 

 Obscure traces upon the first range of foot-hills of still more ancient corallines, 

 to which I shall again refer, point to a still more remote succession of uplifts 

 whose vertical range — referred to the latest indicated level of coral formations, 

 some one hundred feet below the present shore — may be estimated at about 

 twenty-three hundred feet. From the syenite hills may have disappeared by 

 subaerial erosion intervening corallines, between those of the present coast and 

 the line of ancient and now metamorphosed corallines traced along the contact 

 or southern margin of tlie diorite mantle." 



1 American Journal of Science, December, 1884. 



