44 GEOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. 



Santiago y Samana, sometimes called the "Scotch Railroad" because of the 

 nationality of its promoters, extends from La Vega to a terminal on Samana 

 Bay at Sanchez, and one branch runs northward to San Francisco de Ma- 

 coris and another to Salcedo and Moca. 



Several large sugar estates have constructed short railways for their own 

 use. These roads are most numerous in the vicinity of San Pedro de 

 Macoris, Azua, and other towns on the south coast. 



ROADS AND TRAILS. 



Highway construction in the Dominican Republic is now being vigor- 

 ously prosecuted by the Departamento de Obras Piiblicas, but the mileage 

 of roads passable for wheeled vehicles is still lamentably small. The 

 most important road projected is the Carretera Duarte, which will run 

 from Santo Domingo through La Vega and Santiago to Monte Cristi. 

 Much of this road, which will connect the capital with the Cibao Valley, is 

 already open to traffic, and the final and most difficult section, that 

 across the Cordillera Central, is now under construction. 



Nearly all overland traffic uses trails that are absolutely impassable for 

 wheeled vehicles and that appear to have received few repairs since the 

 time of Columbus. The sharp hoofs of innumerable mules and burros, 

 heavily laden with the varied products of the country, have cut the softer 

 stretches of road into remarkably even transverse furrows, some of them 

 nearly belly deep, which fill with a sticky mixture of mud and water during 

 rains and rarely become dry. The hard ridges between the furrows offer 

 a precarious footing to pedestrians, but the canny donkey prefers to follow in 

 the footsteps of his ancestors. As many of these mudholes occur on steep 

 mountain sides very little labor in digging ditches would greatly reduce 

 their number. Mud is more to be dreaded than mountains. 



The most formidable obstacle to travel in the Dominican Republic is the 

 Cordillera Central. This great mountain range is crossed by several 

 trails, all of them rather difficult. The passes across the east end of the 

 range are low and very muddy. The trails across the central and western 

 parts of the range are not so muddy but are very rough and steep. In the 

 course of this investigation the Cordillera was crossed by three trails — the 

 Bonao trail, which leads from the capital through Los Alcarrizos, Piedra 

 Blanca, and Bonao to La Vega; the Constanza trail; and a trail from Saba- 

 neta to Restauracion and thence along the cafion of the Guayajayuco to 

 the vicinity of Banica and on to San Juan. 



COAST LINE AND SHORE FEATURES. 



MANZANILLO BAY. 



At the mouth of Rio Massacre, the boundary between the Dominican 

 Republic and the Republic of Haiti, a V-shaped tongue of deep water, 

 probably formed by a down-dropped fault block, pushes into the land. 



