SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I928 57 



On December 15 I arrived at the United West Indies Corporation 

 plantation at L'Atalaye, 156 miles Ijv automobile north of Port-au- 

 Prince. Here I was made welcome and comfortable, being given a 

 portion of the house occupied by one of the assistants to the general 

 manager of the plantation. After spending a few days looking over 

 the grounds and collecting specimens of various kinds, work was 

 begun at the Atalaye group of caves known as Xos. 5, 6, and 7. 

 These caves, situated on top of a limestone ridge, were about 45 

 minutes' walk due north from the plantation. xA.ll three of them had 

 rather large openings, with masses of broken rocks strewn in the 

 entrance. The floors in this group of caves all sloped downward, to a 

 depth in some cases of about 50 feet below the level of the entrance, 

 and consisted of a mixture of surface soil, guano, and small rocks. 

 In some sections of the floor the soil had become quite solid through 

 infiltration of lime in the water constantly drijiping from the stalactites. 

 Shortly after my arrival at the plantation I employed four young 

 natives ; fortunately, two of these had previously been employed by 

 Mr. Miller and were somewhat experienced with this particular type 

 of work. By December 21 operations were in full swing, starting with 

 No. 5. Collecting of this nature was rather slow and tedious. First 

 the larger rocks had to lie removed, then the soil very carefully taken 

 up and put through a quarter-inch mesh sieve, and from there screened 

 into a very fine mesh sieve, in order to catch all the smaller bones, 

 fragments, and tiny teeth. The large and medium-sized bones were 

 then picked out and the residue placed in small sacks, which were 

 later very carefully sorted at my headquarters on the plantation. The 

 small skulls, jaws, and unbroken bones were then thoroughlv cleaned, 

 painted with a solution to prevent further lireaking, and finally packed 

 for shipment. Six days were spent in No. 5 with but onlv fair results. 



I had been informed of another cave al)out 15 miles to the north, 

 near San Rafael, and on December 28, made a trip there to inspect 

 it. This cave was rather high up on the mountain side, with an en- 

 trance about 40 feet wide. The ceiling was very high in most places 

 and the entire floor, unlike the other caves in which I later worked, 

 sloped upward instead of downward. Large stalactites and stalagmites 

 were abundant, many of them making excellent roosts for owls. Bats 

 were numerous in this cave, but were concealed in the high fissures 

 of the ceiling. Remains of bats, rats, and mice were fairly abundant 

 on certain sections of the floor, especially under the '' roosts." No 

 collecting was done here at this time. One very large stalactite in the 

 San Rafael cave took the form of an angel in flight, and this the 



