No. 1.] MATTHEW — IMPRESSIONS OF CUBA. 23 



shallow coves. Between two of these the town is situated ; it is 

 closely built, and contains about six or eight thousand inhabi- 

 tants. Along the waterside it is bordered with warehouses and 

 wharves; the former are seldom more than one storey high, but 

 arc very spacious. Most vessels trading to this port load at the 

 wharves, but such as are of large size move out from the shore to 

 complete their cargoes, owing to the shallowness of the water on 

 this side of the bay. The dwelling houses cover a slope extend- 

 ing from some low hills of marl and sandstone to the shore. 

 The soft yellow rock in these hills lies in beds inclined to the 

 southward at an angle of about thirty degrees ; and water taken 

 from the wells sunk in it is strongly brackish and bitter. The 

 inhabitants of the town, therefore, depend chiefly upon supplies of 

 rainwater, stored up in large tanks. Those who are not so 

 fortunate as to possess cisterns are supplied by water carriers, 

 who sell at a high price, agiia dulce (sweet water) procured from 

 springs in the valley of the Damuji, and brought thence in 

 lighters. This precious liquid costs about as much as ice does 

 with us in summer-time. 



The geological formation, to which the yellow or buff-colored 

 beds underlying Cienfuegos belongs, appears to be one of great 

 thickness. I traced it in a northerly direction as far as Caunau, 

 four miles from Cienfuegos, and did not then reach its limit. 

 This was in a line nearly at right angles to the strike of the beds, 

 and the intervening strata, where exposed, appear to have a very 

 regular dip. The middle part of the series consists of beds, 

 finer and more clayey — apparently also more calcareous — than 

 those at the two places named. At Caunau the strata are quite 

 compact and firm, becoming a coarse sandstone. For a mile or 

 two back of Cienfuegos there are numerous fossiliferous layers 

 in the more clayey part of the series, from which I obtained 

 the following forms: — Balanus, sp,, BentaUinnf Ostrea, 7 sp., 

 Anomla, sp., Pecten, 3 sp., Echinoids of two species (one a 

 Scutelloid form,) also a' large Orhitoides, a sharks tooth, and 

 parts of the test of a crab, including the claws and carapace. 

 Mr. J. Lechmere Guppy of Trinidad, W. I., who has kindly 

 examined these fossils, says they are probably of Miocene age. 

 The formation in which they occur is evidently one of great 

 magnitude and importance, and I have no doubt occurs at many 

 other points in this part of the Island. I should think it to be 

 a mile in thickness where I crossed it. It is probably limited 



