30 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. 



VI 1. 



•Conns, an oyster of the type of Ostrava crista fa, Echini and 

 sponges. These fossils were seen in a ravine near the buildings 

 -of the Concepcion Estate on the eastern side, and at the Landing 

 of the Constancia Estate on the western side of the Damuji. 



One feature worthy of remark in the Cretaceous rocks of the 

 ■district of Cienfuegos is the evidence they give of the extent to 

 which the hardening process has gone in them ; this condition of 

 the beds is not limited to the district on the Damuji which I have 

 spoken of, but characterizes them over a large area. In this respect 

 -they differ greatly from the strata of cotemporaneous age in the 

 Southern States of the Union ; for in liardness and coherence they 

 resemble the carboniferous scries of the Maritime Provinces of 

 -Canada ; but they are not so hard as the Silurian and Lower and 

 Middle Devonian of this region, from which the bituminous 

 matter has been expelled. 



The evidence afforded by the Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks 

 of the momentous changes which have occurred in the later geo- 

 logical periods over the whole of the West Indian area, are parti- 

 'Cularly striking to those who witness in Canada and the Eastern 

 United States indications of violent disturbances in the earth's 

 crust only in periods much more remote. Such movements had 

 oeased here in times long anterior to those in which the Gryplicece 

 and Inocerami of the Damuji valley lived. While the Caribbean 

 region evinces the action of intense forces in the upheaval of 

 mountain chains during the later Secondary and Tertiary ages, 

 it also li'ives indications of those a'cntler oscillations of the earths 

 surface which marks those epochs, as well as the Post Tertiary, 

 throughout the Appalachian and Laurentian regions of the 

 neighboring continent. 



Any one who will t:ike the trouble to examine a good map of 

 the West Indies, v/ill observe two strongly marked lines of eleva- 

 "tion parallel to each other, namely, the line running through 

 Jamaicn, the south side of Hayti, Porto Rico and the Virgin 

 Islands ; and that runnino- from the Grand Cavman to Point 

 Maysi at the eastern end of Cub;i. These are supplemented on 

 the north by the line of elevations in the Isle of Pines, the 

 Jardin Cays, &c. ; and on the south by the range indicated in 

 the Seranelhi, the New Shoal east of it, and the islets off the 

 Oarabasca Lagoon. These E. to W. ranges witli the N.W. to 

 S.E. courses of some important mountain systems in the large 

 islands, Cuba and San Domingo, combine to give their present 



