280 BULLETIN OF THE 



River of Matanzas are certainly eroded in the manner Mr. Crosby alleges, 

 not through coral reefs, but through older rocks which have been ele- 

 vated across the tracks of the rivers, though most of the harbor necks 

 in the east end of the island are certainly old submarine reef valleys, 

 resulting merely from the fact that the coral has grown up around them. 

 The harbor of Havana is a much better example of supposed subsidence 

 than is that of Baracoa, but even here the channel cut out of the old 

 Tertiary walls of the harbor does not necessarily imply that the land was 

 formerly higher than now, for the heavy surf may be seen cutting many 

 similar indentations into the limestone sea front, which action, with the 

 aid of that of the rivers, could have easily made these indentations. 



Concerning the mouths of the rivers themselves, their alluvial de- 

 posits and the evidence of their valleys may bo interpreted to mean 

 elevation more positively than Mr. Crosby interprets them to mean sub- 

 sidence, nor can I understand why he calls them " half drowned." There 

 is a singular absence of fiord-like valleys or indentations, or of ancient 

 estuarine deposits, around the coast of Cuba, such as ordinarily indicate 

 subsidence. (Plate I. Fig. 6.) In fact, the rivers in nearly all cases, 

 like the Yumuri of the east, run directly to sea level through almost 

 vertical chasms cut straight across the line of terraces, and are void of 

 any terraces within their canons, showing unmistakably that they have 

 been cut down to sea level since the terraces and their own deltas were 

 elevated, and that there is no superimposition indicative of subsidence 

 previous to the reef-making epoch. 



That some of these rivers do at present reach tide level a shoi't dis- 

 tance from the beach is true, but so short is this distance that vessels 

 can always obtain fresh water from them by sending light boats up 

 stream less than a mile. I think that this slight indentation of tide 

 level up these rivers is indicative, not of " drowning," or of an ancient 

 subsidence, but that, on the contrary, it means merely that the rivers 

 and surf are doing their normal work of degrading the land. If they 

 were really drowned rivers they would be navigable some distance inland, 

 but in the three largest streams, the Armendaris of Havana and the two 

 Yumuris of Matanzas and Baracoa, I found it impossible to go inland 

 over a mile in the shallowest row boat, being soon retarded by rapids. 



On the other hand, these streams are new forming delta deposits in 

 places outside their mouths, which is more indicative of present eleva- 

 tion than of subsidence. Furthermore, at tlie mouth of the Yumuri of 

 the east these deltas were also formed iuiinediately preceding the eleva- 

 tion of the coast I'cef, which may be accepted as evidence of elevation at 



