286 BULLETIN OF THE 



Cuba, and the teiTaces are all of later age. Before this period, which for 

 convenience we will call early Pleistocene (properly late Tertiary) it 

 must be acknowledged that the area of Cuba, crests and coasts, was at 

 least two thousand feet lower in altitude than at present. We cannot 

 imagine that such a depression was locally limited to the island of Cuba 

 or the Great Antilles, or that it would have abruptly terminated along 

 the east and west axial line, and hence it is not difficult to infer, espe- 

 cially in the light of existing geologic evidence, that it involved the 

 isthmian portion of the continent south of the great escarpment of the 

 Mexican plateau, and that oceanic connection then existed between the 

 Atlantic and the Pacific, as has been already indicated by the paleon- 

 tology and by the living forms. -^ 



^ See A. Agassiz, The Origin of the West India Fauna, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., 

 Vol. X. No. 1, p. 79, 1883; also, Three Cruises of the "Blake," Bull. Mus. Comp. 

 Zool., Vol. XIV., 1888. 



