68 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



In the interior valleys, plantations of 

 tobacco are laid out. The plants are 

 protected by sheets of cheesecloth 

 which, with their sharply-defined bor- 

 ders, seem like incongruous fields of 

 snow upon the deep green of the 

 hills. Even the steep slopes of the 

 hills bear here and there their little 

 patches of tobacco or of other crops, 

 centering about a native hut perched 

 precariously near the top, and set off 

 by the graceful royal palms. Higher 

 up, the character of the ground or of the 

 gradient niay be such as to render the 

 region unsuitable for tobacco, yet even 

 here coffee and cocoa are grown under 

 the shade of specially planted trees. 

 Little remains of the larger forest, for 

 wood becomes scarce when so many 

 demand it daily for fires. Only on the 

 higher peaks of the great central moun- 

 tains are there any relics of the primeval 

 growth that once extended so widely. 



On the flanks of the main east-and- 



west backbone of the island, composed 

 of igneous rocks, there are broken levels 

 and hills of limestone, full of marine 

 fossils and other indications of their 

 origin at the border of the ocean. Since 

 their formation the land has risen so as 

 to lift them many hundreds of feet 

 above their former level. Where the 

 rivers have worn against them, they 

 display stratified faces of especial in- 

 terest to the geologist and palaeontolo- 

 gist. 



Passing the great divide from north 

 to south, the mountains drop more 

 rapidly to the foothills and to the coastal 

 plains. In the southeast the ground 

 is still suitable for sugar and cocoanut 

 groves; but coming west, the effect of 

 the heights in cutting off the moisture of 

 the trades becomes more marked, and a 

 semi-arid region with its characteristic 

 cactus is encountered. Here the cane 

 can be grown only by extensive irriga- 

 tion, which the Insular Government has 



Within the cave thousands of bats hide in the holes of the arched roof and there are various insects 

 and huge Arachnida with long delicate antennae which serve them in place of their virtually useless eyes 



