THE TERTIARY GROUP. 167 



weeds and living polypi, we find enormous masses of madre- 

 pores and other lithophyte corals set in the texture of those 

 shelves. We are at first tempted to admit, that the whole 

 of this limestone rock, which constitutes the principal por- 

 tion of the island of Cuba, may be traced to an uninterrupted 

 operation of nature, to the action of productive organic 

 forces an action which continues in our days in the bosom 

 of the ocean ; but this apparent novelty of limestone forma- 

 tions soon vanishes when we quit the shore, and recollect 

 the series of coral rocks which contain the formations of 

 different ages, the muschelkalk, the Jura limestone, and 

 coarse limestone. The same coral rocks as those of the 

 Castillo and La Punta are found in the lofty inland moun- 

 tains, accompanied with petrifications of bivalve shells, very 

 different from those now seen on the coasts of the Antilles. 

 Without positively assigning a determinate place in the 

 table of formations to the limestone of Grumes, which is 

 that of the Castillo and La Punta, I have no doubt of the 

 relative antiquity of that rock with respect to the calcareous 

 agglomerate of the Cayos, situated south of Batabano, and 

 oast of the island of Pinos. The globe has undergone great 

 revolutions between the periods when these two soils were 

 formed; the one containing the great caverns of Matanzas, the 

 other daily augmenting by the agglutination of fragments 

 of coral and quartzose sand. On the south of the island of 

 Cuba, the latter soil seems to repose sometimes on the Jura 

 limestone of Guines, as in the Jardinillos, and sometimes 

 (towards Cape Cruz) immediately over primitive rocka. In 

 the lesser Antilles, the corals are covered with volcanic 

 productions. Several of the Cayos of the island of Cuba con- 

 tain fresh water; and I found this water very good in the 

 middle of the Cayo de Piedras. When we reflect on the 

 extreme smallness of these islands, we can scarcely believe that 

 the fresh-water wells are filled with rain-water not evaporated. 



to the manganese which we recognize by some dendrites ? The sea, 

 entering into the clefts of the rocks, and in a cavern at the foot of the 

 Castillo del Morro, compresses the air, and makes it issue with a tre- 

 mendous noise. This noise explains the phenomena of the " baxos ron- 

 cadures," (snoring bocabeoos), so well known to navigators who cross 

 from Jamaica to the mouth of Rio San Ju*% of Nicaragua, or to th 

 Mland of S-.n Andres. 



