892 LIMESTONE OF CA1UPE. 





toises high, and an ammonite seven inches in diameter, in 

 the Montana de Santa Maria, north-north-west of Caripe. 

 I nowhere saw the limestone of Cumanacoa (of which I 

 treat specially in this article) resting on the sandstone of 

 the Llanos ; if there be any such superposition, it must be 

 found on descending the table-land of Cocollar towards the 

 Mesa de Am ana. On the southern coast of the gulf of 

 Cariaco, the limestone formation probably covers, without 

 the interposition of another rock, a mica-slate which passes 

 to carburetted clay-slate. In the northern part of the gulf 

 I distinctly saw this clayey formation at the depth of two 

 or three fathoms in the sea. The submarine hot springs 

 appeared to me to gush from mica-slate like the petroleum 

 of Maniquarez. If any doubts remain as to the rock on 

 which the limestone of Cumanacoa is immediately super- 

 posed, there is none respecting the rocks which cover it, 

 such as (1) the tertiary limestone of Cumana, near Punta 

 Delgada, and at Cerro de Meapire ; (2) the sandstone of 

 Quetepe and Turimiquiri, which, forming layers also in the 

 limestone of Cumanaco, belongs properly to the latter soil; 

 the limestone of Caripe, which we have often identified in 

 the course of this work, with Jura limestone, and of which 

 we shall speak in the following article. 



VIII. FOBMATION OP THE COMPACT LIMESTONE OF 



CARIPE. Descending the Cuchillo de Guanaguana towards 

 tke convent of Caripe, we find another more recent forma- 

 tion, white, with a smooth or slightly conch oidal fracture, 

 and divided in very thin layers, which succeeds to the bluish 

 grey limestone formation oi Cumanacoa. I call this in the 

 first instance the limestone formation of Caripe, on account 

 of the cavern of that name, inhabited by thousands of noc- 

 turnal birds. This limestone appeared to me identical (1) 

 with the limestone of the Morro de Barcelona and the 

 Chimanas Islands, which contains small layers of black 

 kieselschiefer (slaty jasper) without veins of quartz, and 

 breaking into fragments of parallelepiped form ; (2) with 

 the whitish grey limestone with smooth fracture, of Tisnao, 

 T^hich seems to cover the sandstone of the Llanos. We find 

 the formation of Caripe in the island of Cuba (between the 



