ARTICLE VII. 
Memowr on the Character and Prospects of the Copper Region of Gibara, and a Sketch of 
the Geology of the north-east part of the Island of Cuba, by Rich. C. Taylor. Read 
May 30, 1843. 
The writer of the following pages passed a portion of the year 1836 in investigating 
the Gibara and Holguin Mineral Region, a district, which, prior to that period, was little 
known to science. Some of his notes relative to Cuba geology, in the form of detached 
papers, were contributed to the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine; and to 
Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History: and the American Philosophical Society has 
done him the honour to print in one of their volumes of Transactions, an account of the 
deposites or veins of mineral pitch or bitumen, denominated Chappapote, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Havana and Matanzas, and also in the Bay of Havana. 
Many details of the geology around Gibara, and in particular those relating to the 
mineral'and savana region south of that port, were reserved for a more elaborate com- 
munication, and for some such favourable occasion as the present. 
The main difficulty, which at the outset seemed to render the undertaking almost 
impracticable, was the total absence of a topographical map: nor was it found possible 
to remedy the deficiency, on the occasion, save by one means—to construct a map for 
himself, sufficient for geological illustration. With the aid of the few instruments then 
in his possession, he commenced the framework of his topographical survey, and made 
the essential observations alone and almost entirely unassisted. 
These notes have now, after a long interval, been put together. Upward of a hundred 
lines and angles of intersection, and considerably more than that number of topographical 
admeasurements, form the basis of the accompanying reconnoissance. The writer was 
compelled to abandon the work and to return home, before requiring a sufficient number of 
points, essential to an adequate triangulation of the areaexamined. Tor this there is now 
no remedy; and he proceeds to make the most of the materials he has acquired. Those 
who have experienced the toil of such investigations within the tropics; the exposure to 
enervating heat; and have felt the fatigue consequent on any exertion in the midst of a 
tropical mountain vegetation,—and that single handed,—will be ready to make all rea- 
sonable allowance for the obvious deficiencies of the present communication. All that he 
