SECONDARY LIMESTONES. 393 



Havannah and Batabano, and between the port of Trinidad 

 and Rio Guaurabo),as well in the small Cayman Islands. 



I have hitherto described the secondary limestone forma- 

 tions of the littoral chain without giving them the systematic 

 names which may connect them with the formations of 

 Europe. During my stay in America, I took the lime- 

 stone of Cumanacoa for zechstein or Alpine limestone, 

 and that of Caripe for Jura limestone. The carburetted 

 and slightly bituminous marl of Cumanacoa, analogous 

 to the strata of bituminous slate, which are very nume- 

 rous* in the Alps of southern Bavaria, appeared to me 

 to characterize the former of these formations ; while the 

 dazzling whiteness of the cavernous stratum of Caripe, and the 

 form of those shelves of rocks rising in walls and cornices, 

 forcibly reminded me of the Jura limestone of Streitberg 

 in Franconia, or of Oitzow and Krzessowic, in Upper 

 Silesia. There is in Venezuela a suppression of the different 

 strata which, in the old continent, separate zechstein from 

 Jura limestone. The sandstone of Cocollar, which some- 

 times covers the limestone of Cumanacoa, may be considered 

 as variegated sandstone ; but it is more probable that in 

 alternating by layers with the limestone of Cumanacoa, it 

 is sometimes thrown to the upper limit of the formation 

 to which it belongs. The zechstein of Europe also con- 

 tains a very quartzose sandstone. The two limestone strata 

 of Cumanaco and Caripe succeed immediately each other, 

 Jike Alpine and Jura limestone, on the western declivity 

 of the Mexican table-land, between Sopilote, Mescala, and 

 Tehuilotepec. These formations, perhaps, pass from one to 

 the other, so that the latter may be only an upper shelf of 

 zechstein. This immediate covering, this suppression of 

 interposed soils, this simplicity of structure, and absence of 

 oolitic strata, have been equally observed in Upper Silesia 

 and in the Pyrenees. On the other hand, the immediate 

 superposition of the limestone of Cumanacoa on mica-slate 

 and transition clay-slate, the rarity of the petrifactions 

 which have not yet been sufficiently examined, the strata of 

 eilex passing to Lydian stone, may lead to the belief that 

 the soils of Cumanacoa and Caripe are of much more ancient 



I found them also in the Peruvian Andes, near Montau, at the height 

 of 1600 toises. 



