284 BULLETIN OF THE 



ever, that during the Cretaceous, at the close of the Comanche epoch, 

 great erogenic forces were active, and that the strike of their corruga- 

 tions constantly bent eastward until in the latitude of Southern Mexico 

 they were in the direction of this old Antilleau axis, and that the latter 

 may have been part of the protuberances marking this line of great 

 erogenic movement, which in general was peripheral or concentric to 

 the old Appalachian land. 



How great an area was involved in the upper Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 subsidences it is difficult to say. No attempt has been made to trace 

 the former event in the Antilles. The latter certainly included all the 

 great Antilles, — a region fifteen hundred miles in length from east to 

 west, — and the Atlantic and Gulf margins of the North and South 

 American continents, and probably all the isthmian region, which was 

 possibly land in Upper Cretaceous time, again connecting the Gulf of 

 Mexico. 



One of the misty epochs in Cuban history is that of the folding and 

 disturbance at the close of the Tertiary, and I can only suggest that it 

 belongs with the orogenic phenomena wliich enveloped or overlapped 

 the periphery of the older Mesozoic Cordilleran region, in Central Amer- 

 ica, and in northern South America. This involved the Tertiary forma- 

 tions of the other Antilles, but there is no trace of it along the northern 

 periphery of the Gulf of Mexico. 



I do not mean to say that these vast and apparently uniform regional 

 elevations which have taken place since tlie earlier folding of the Mio- 

 cene limestones were unaccompanied by faults or warping, but these are 

 nowhere prominently apparent, and their importance is secondary to the 

 former, which were not local, but general or epeirogenic in character, 

 and involved the uplifting of the whole island approximately, uniformly, 

 and synchronously. 



That this uplifting was confined to Cuba alone of the Antilles, it 

 would be prepostorous to suppose, and we can in no way avoid the con- 

 clusion that it represents only a small portion of a great regional uplift, 

 including much of the surrounding area of the Mexican and Caribbean 

 gulfs. The adjacent islands must have been involved in these great 

 regional movements, the periphery of which must have been some dis- 

 tance from the present island, but I do not allege that the islands were 

 thereby connected. 



Whether the movements can ultimately be correlated with those of 

 the surrounding American coasts, or the topographic irregularities of 

 the surrounding ocean floor, is a question which I shall not attempt to 



