i 
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GEOLOGY OF PART OF CUBA. 213 
osseous breccia of Gibraltar. We even here met with fragments of bones; and it did not 
appear difficult or improper to refer those animal remains, enclosed in this modern lime- 
stone, to the Hutia, or large native Indian rat, which attains nearly to the size of the 
American raccoon. This animal still abounds in the woods, and amidst these moun- 
tains of Cuba; and we actually saw them, in abundance, living on the very site where we 
recognised their partially fossilized remains; and inhabiting the rocks wherein their 
bones are thus beautifully preserved, and perpetually entombed, 
It appears almost incredible that the testacea should accumulate in such yast numbers; 
sufficient, indeed, to form, with the aid of other accompaniments, distinct stratified masses 
within the mountain. We know that other organic remains, besides those which we have 
mentioned as the most conspicuous, have contributed to swell and to vary the amount. 
We well know that these same caverns are occasionally, if not constantly, tenanted by 
other inhabitants, than such as we have named:—by iguans and lizards; by frogs of 
numerous specimens; occasionally by land crabs;—by the large Maas, the chicken 
snake of Cuba, ten feet long; by the wild hog and dog of the country; without mention- 
ing the innumerable numbers of the insect tribes; the scorpions, the tarantulas, and a 
host of others. We must not forget how singularly adapted, beyond any other perhaps 
on the globe, are the climate and soil, and vegetation, and other favouring circumstances, 
of this island, to the production, the maintenance, and the multiplication of animal and 
insect life; especially in solitudes like those of the mountains of La Sta and El Paramo. 
Is it, therefore, remarkable, that in turn the relics of all these animals should be en- 
veloped in stalagmitical matter, and should form a rock which is characterized by such a 
singular assemblage of organic exuvia? But having witnessed in the caves of La Silla 
the myriads there congregated, we were at no loss to perceive that these dead shells, and 
occasionally other matters, intermixed with the red soil, and undergoing the unceasing 
process of consolidation, by infiltration of carbonate of lime, would at no very distant 
period, assume the substance of a solid fossiliferous marble, such as in fact we saw abun- 
dantly elsewhere. 
There yet remains an additional fact to be adverted to; and it is an extremely interest- 
ing one. Amongst the land shells, were observed, occasionally, some univalves that were 
unquestionably marine. This fact had, originally, greatly contributed to our perplexity. 
It was an enigma not to be solved at a glance. 
But the mystery mas cleared up, when we discovered that the active and real trans- 
porting agents, in this case, were the soldier crabs, which frequent the solitary places, 
and which use the littoral shells for their temporary residences. Numerous individuals 
of the genus Pagurus, at certain seasons, resort to the sea-shore; and they are often seen, 
in great numbers on their travels. ‘They return from their pilgrimage, each dragging 
the deserted shell of some marine univalve; for many a weary mile, over the sands and 
the wilderness; over swamps, and the most rugged rocks. ‘Thus, like the pilgrims of 
the olden time, each bearing his shell, to denote the character, and to indicate the extent, 
of his wanderings, they proceed mile after mile, into the interior; traversing dense woods 
and climbing the highest and steepest mountains. At the distance of eight or ten miles 
from the nearest sea beach, we trace them up to the very crests of the most precipitous 
escarpments of La Silla: hundreds of feet above the ocean. Finally, when the habitation, 
VOL. 1X.—57 
