262 BULLETIN OF THE 



mountains, are very flat, and abruptly terminate against short lines of 

 hills, and there is no reason to doubt that they and tlie limestone hills 

 are the product of the miequal resistance of the different limestones 

 above described, the mountains representing the remnants below which 

 the plains developed on another harder plane. (Plate Y.) 



The eminences of Cuba called mountains, with the exception of the 

 Sierra Maestra and kindred ranges of the Santiago coast, can now be 

 easily classified. (Plate I. Fig. 8.) They are all either (1) the direct 

 remnants of the old limestone covering carved out by circumscribing 

 erosion, or (2) inequalities of the ancient metamorphic floor from which 

 the limestone has been denuded. 



The mountains of the former kind may be placed in two general 

 classes, according to their altitude and degree of erosion. First are the 

 high limestone peaks, mesas, and riilges, having an altitude of from one 

 thousand to two thousand feet. The Sierra Yuuque of Baracoa, the Pan 

 de Matanzas, and the Tetas de Managua, are examples of isolated peaks, 

 standing close to the north shore of the island. Each of these is 

 surrounded by deep drainage valleys cut almost down to sea level. 

 They are many miles away from any masses of land of similar altitude, 

 and form conspicuous landmarks along the coast. Their summits are of 

 the sub-horizontal strata of old limestone, while the base of at least one, 

 the Sierra Yunque, consists of the older metamorphic rocks. The high 

 ridges, like the Sierra San Juan, and the high summits of the central 

 portion of the island, ai"e remnants of the same old level, and differ from 

 the more isolated peaks in having been less dissected. Xot owing their 

 outline to any structural folding, but being entirely the product of the 

 drainage, these have no regularity of arrangement or trend, but are 

 found in irregular patches throughout the island. 



The Spanish language, to which our geographic nomenclature is 

 already so much indebted, has provided an appropriate name for moun- 

 tains of this class, which have lower altitudes, ranging from four hun- 

 dred to seven hundred feet. These are the cuchillas, or knives, so called 

 because of the numerous sharp salients marking their slopes, caused by 

 the deep incision of the old plain or general level of which they are the 

 fast fading remnant. These are the hills forming the sharp background 

 to the coasts, especially at the east end of the island. The cuchillas are 

 generally composed of the old limestone, which dips at many angles and 

 degrees, but sometimes they consist of a complex of limestones, yellow 

 beds, radiolarian beds, and the old mctamorj)hic floor. At the Yumuri 

 River of the east and around Cape Maysi they consist of a more massive 



