﻿CUBAN CAVE REGION. 191 



not perceptible to a casual observer. Mr. Francesco Martinez, who lives within a 

 mile of the place and has been my guide about the caves of Caiias, informed me 

 that the water would all disappear in a day, but that there was no distinct opening 

 to any stream below the surface. Though I have been able to get to the ground- 

 water in many caves about the neighborhood, none of the caves had any intimate 

 connection with an underground stream, for, while the surface water was extremely 

 muddy and abundant and all of it was carried off as rapidly as it would have been 

 in a surface-drained area, the water in the caves to the south, in which direction the 

 drainage flows, remained limpid and showed no appreciable rise. I was told, 

 however, that during an unusual freshet in 1886 the entire region about Modesta 

 Cave became flooded and, naturally, the cave was overflowing.* The underground 

 streams come to the surface in a series of "ojos de agua." I visited two of these. 

 One of them is in the Cienaga near the Playa of Guanimar. The water simply 

 rises here in a pool 20 feet across in a swamp and is conducted in an artificial canal 

 by the side of a road to the sea. I did not make extensive observations in this neigh- 

 borhood, for the Cienaga has a great number of soft places with unknown depth, 

 from which even the highway with a ditch on cither side was not altogether free. 

 One of the ditches showed the ground to be permeated with canals up to a foot in 

 diameter. In this Cienaga many of the southward-flowing subterranean streams 

 find their exit, doubtless others have a subaqueous exit in the ocean ; two others are 

 found at Batabano on the coast just south of Havana. On the northern slope the 

 most famous of the exits of the underground rivers is the Vento Springs, which 

 supply the city of Havana with water. I have described these in Science (N. S. 

 xviii, pp. 281-282, 1903). I should say that this spring does not yield half as 

 much water as that at Guanimar. Underground streams and tunneled mountains 

 are not rare in other parts of Cuba, though I have not connected them directly with 

 the blind fishes. 



I was told a cave passes through a hill west of Matanzas, over which the United 

 Havana Railroad runs. I was also told that at Cardenas, only 10 or 15 miles from 

 the Cave of the Insurrectos, there are underground streams with blind fishes, but 

 this information reached me too late to make a personal inspection. 



The most famous of the underground streams and tunneled mountains in all of 

 Cuba is the Sumidero which I visited. This region is half a day's travel by horse 

 from Pinar del Rio. I found no blind fishes here, and it is extremely doubtful 

 whether any occur in the main stream which twice pierces mountains in the course 

 of a mile amid the most impressive cave scenery I have seen. 



In the blind-fish area drained by underground streams the surface water reaches 

 the underground streams through sink-holes, fissures, and "caves." 



The sink holes are shallow and imperceptible. One at Finca Rosa, I have 

 described above ; another is at Aguada on the United Havana Railroad, where, in 

 extreme cases the water rises to stand several feet over the railroad track and then 

 gradually disappears entirely.^ The difference in the nature of the sink holes of 



' Mr. Martinez gave me the following facts: Rain unless protracted makes no impression on the water in 

 the caves — as measured by visual standards. After a rain of 3 days and nights it rises 6 or S inches. In 1886, 

 after a long rain of 5 days and nights the water in the well at Isabella rose to within 5 feet of the surface. Ordi- 

 narily it is about 50 feet from the surface. In the Modesta Cave in which the water'is normally 15 feet from the 

 surface the water rose to the top and over, till it stood i foot in the house of Modesta, and between the houses 

 at Isabella and Modesta the water was in places 5 to 6 feet deep. The rain water does not run off in surface 

 streams, but all of it sinks into the ground. At the time of the high water the water disappeared from the surface 

 at Modesta m 2 days, while in the deeper places it did not disappear for 5 or 6 days. 



2 The lowest part of the land at Aguada del Cura is 4i;.77 m. above the Nueva R. R. station in Havana 

 The railroad track is 2.82 m. higher. 



