262 BULLETIN OF THE 
mountains, are very flat, and abruptly terminate against short lines of 
hills, and there is no reason to doubt that they and the limestone hills 
are the product of the unequal resistance of the different limestones 
above described, the mountains representing the remnants below which 
the plains developed on another harder plane. (Plate V.) 
The eminences of Cuba called mountains, with the exception of the 
Sierra Maestra and kindred ranges of the Santiago coast, can now be 
easily classified. (Plate I. Fig. 8.) They are all either (1) the direct 
remnants of the old limestone covering carved out by circumscribing 
erosion, or (2) inequalities of the ancient metamorphic floor from which 
the limestone has been denuded. 
The mountains of the former kind may be placed in two general 
classes, according to their altitude and degree of erosion. First are the 
high limestone peaks, mesas, and ridges, having an altitude of from one 
thousand to two thousand feet. The Sierra Yunque of Baracoa, the Pan 
de Matanzas, and the Tetas de Managua, are examples of isolated peaks, 
standing close to the north shore of the island. Each of these is 
surrounded by deep drainage valleys cut almost down to sea level. 
They are many miles away from any masses of land of similar altitude, 
and form conspicuous landmarks along the coast. Their summits are of 
the sub-horizontal strata of old limestone, while the base of at least one, 
the Sierra Yunque, consists of the older metamorphic rocks. The high 
ridges, like the Sierra San Juan, and the high summits of the central 
portion of the island, are remnants of the same old level, and differ from 
the more isolated peaks in having been less dissected. Not owing their 
outline to any structural folding, but being entirely the product of the 
drainage, these have no regularity of arrangement or trend, but are 
found in irregular patches throughout the island. 
The Spanish language, to which our geographic nomenclature is 
already so much indebted, has provided an appropriate name for moun- 
tains of this class, which have lower altitudes, ranging from four hun- 
dred to seven hundred feet. These are the cuchillas, or knives, so called 
because of the numerous sharp salients marking their slopes, caused by 
the deep incision of the old plain or general level of which they are the 
fast fading remnant. These are the hills forming the sharp background 
to the coasts, especially at the east end of the island. The cuchillas are 
generally composed of the old limestone, which dips at many angles and 
degrees, but sometimes they consist of a complex of limestones, yellow 
beds, radiolarian beds, and the old metamorphic floor. At the Yumuri 
River of the east and around Cape Maysi they consist of a more massive 
