124 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



and shallow draft vessels. After passing Nuevitas the clusters of gulf- 

 weed became more and moi'e numerous. 



The long, low cays which extend westward beyond Maternillos Point 

 are separated from the shore by a shallow lagoon, forming a continuous 

 passage for small boats between them and the mainland all the way to 

 Cardenas. The highest point on any of the cays is on Cay Romano, the 

 hills on the northern extremity of which are marked on the charts as 

 being about two hundred and thirty feet high. The monotony of this 

 low shore along which we skirted after passing Maternillos Light was 

 relieved by the hills of Cay Guajaba, ninety feet in height perhaps. 



While we could make out the reef rock of the immediate shore line of 

 Cay Sabinal, Cay Guajaba, and Cay Romano, we could also see how great 

 a part of the beaches concealing it was made up of sand formed from the 

 decomposition both of the soboruco and the fragments of the outlying 

 living coral reef. After passing Boca Guajaba, the plateau to the east- 

 ward of Cay Romano widens greatly, and upon its eastern edge are Cay 

 Verde, Cay Confites, Cay Cruz, Caiman and Anton Cays, and Paredon 

 Grande, which must undoubtedly once have formed a part of Cay Ro- 

 mano, but have been separated from it by the extensive erosion which 

 has taken place all along this coast, and which has swept away between 

 Nue vitas and Cardenas nearly all traces of the second and third terraces, 

 and perhaps others, and in the majority of the cays has reduced the area 

 once occupied by them even below the level of the first terrace. 



Cay Confites. 



Plate I. ; Plate XIII. Fig. 2 ; Plate XIV. Fig. 3. 



The rock of which Cay Confites is composed showed this clearly. We 

 anchored for the night to the westward of the cay, and had an opportunity 

 of examining its structure. It is on the very edge of the Old Bahama 

 Channel, holding to it on the west very much the same relation which 

 Cay Lobos holds to it on the east. Those parts of the cay not hidden 

 by sand are all made up of coral reef rock of the first terrace. We col- 

 lected here, as we had at so many other places, specimens of Astrrca, 

 Maeandrina, and Madrepora identical with those collected at Baracoa 

 from the reef rock of the first terrace. Between the spits of the older 

 reef rock were stratified beaches of coral sand dipping to the sea, and 

 formed from the debris of the living reef spit extending to the south of 

 Cay Confites, parallel to the edge of the Old Bahama Channel. On the 



