2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134 
igneous rock, in places associated with beds of white chert. These 
three types of rock presumably belong to the pre-Tertiary basement 
complex of Panama. At Punta Damas small, roughly circular, iron 
manganese concretions (perdigones) are extraordinarily abundant on 
partly eroded surfaces, particularly over the small landing field for 
airplanes, where, at a casual glance, the appearance of the ground in 
places was that of a goat corral. There is a small thermal spring, 
with water the temperature of a very hot bath, at the base of the 
hill above the swampy woodland on the southern side of the Rio 
San Juan. 
Isla Coiba, because of its size and location, was well known in 
the early days of the Spanish settlement in Panama. The first white 
man to visit it was Bartolomé Hurtado, a lieutenant of Gaspar de 
Espinosa, who came to the island in 1516 during an exploration of 
the coast to the west of the Azuero Peninsula. Hurtado, and those 
who followed, found on Coiba Indian inhabitants of powerful phy- 
sique, speaking a Guaymi dialect. They were armed with heavy 
spears, set at the tip with shark’s teeth, and wore corselets made of 
cotton thick enough to turn a bullet, but of no avail against Hurtado’s 
cannon. Some gold was obtained from them, which probably aided 
in their undoing. They were exterminated early, the final remnant 
being taken as laborers to Darién, probably about 1550. In historic 
accounts the name of the island is called variously Cabo, Cobaya, 
Quibo, and Coiba, apparently all variations of the name of the 
Indian chief in control at the time of the Spanish discovery. 
Spanish settlement in Panama during the latter part of the sixteenth 
century spread to the west beyond Nata, through the great Province of 
Veragua, which in that day extended to what is now Costa Rica. The 
Carmelite friar Vasquez de Espinosa, writing of the Pacific side of 
Veraguas, apparently from information gathered between 1612 and 
1620, speaks of sawmills and shipyards employing 4,000 workmen. 
He mentions Remedios with about 80 houses, Montijo, and Chiriqui 
which had 80 Spanish residents. Since transport of products from 
these western outposts would have been by boat, Coiba must have 
been seen and visited regularly, but I have found no record of early 
settlement there. The operations of buccaneers along these coasts in 
early years may have been a deterrent to permanent residence on 
islands so remote. 
Capt. William Dampier in his travels writes that he came to Coiba 
on June 15, 1685. He refers to it as the “isle of Quibo or Cobaya” 
and remarks on the forests, the deer, the monkeys, the iguanas, and 
the snakes. Among details concerned with fresh-water supply, naviga- 
