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SCIENCE 



[Vol. XXI. No. 530 



in small communities and number about 3,000, also about forty 

 Latin-Americans live on the banks of this part of the river and on 

 the banks of the Rio Bokay. 



On the Rio Bokay and its tributary, the Rio Amaca, there live 

 about 300 Sumo Indians, descendants from the Cookras. Their 

 houses are better constructed than those occupied by the Sambos; 

 the houses of both Sumos and Sambos being only roofs of palm- 

 leaves, tied onto upright posts of — generally — bamboo; no walls; 

 only d irt floors. 



The Sumos are a superior people — intellectually, physically, 

 and morally — to the Sambos. They have a language modified 

 from that of their progenitors, the Cookras ^aborigines), and in- 

 cluding some English words. They have numerals to twenty, 

 but like the Sambos are very dull in numbers. They have no 

 laws, no religious faith, no schools, no agriculture, no feast dajs. 

 They bury cooking utensils, clothing, and food owned by their 

 dead with the cadaver. They have small-area, community 

 patches of bananas, which they never cultivate. 



Nicaragua has no otficials in the territory claimed by her from 

 the mouth of the Rio Phantasma, northeastwardly, to near Cape 

 Gracias a Dios. It is a lawless part of her territory. 



The mountain system of Nueve Segovia, composed largely of 

 Eozoic and early Palaeozoic systems of rocks, is delineated at the 

 earth's surface, on its northwestern side, by the Rios Patuca 

 (emptying into the Gulf of Mexico) and Choluteca (flowing 

 southwestwardly into the Gulf of Fonseca), from the Mesozoic, 

 Kainoz9ic, and recent formations in Honduras, which have all 

 been elevated into mountains whose meridional trend is at 

 nearly right angles to the about 32° E. of N. and W. of S. align- 

 ment of the ranges in the mountain system of Nueve Segovia. 

 On the south side of this Nueve Segovia system flows the Wanque 

 River for about three-fourths of the entire length of the moun- 

 tains, and at its southwesterly side is the Rio Negro (a confluent 

 of the Choluteca, flowing around the western termination of the 

 mountain system). It is, so far as known, a monogenetic sys- 

 tem, and its anticlines expose Eozoic and Palaeozoic formations 

 in systems of sinuously outcropping rocks. The largest exposed 

 areas of Eozoic and Palaeozoic rocks are on the Ococan Range at the 

 mountain ridges Maculiso, Santa Maria, and Ococan, and consist 

 largely of granite, slates, gneiss, and extensive deposits of both 

 iron ores (Titanite, Magnetite, and Hematite) and limestones, in- 

 terstratified at two localities, and of graphite. The mountain 

 ridges Dullsupo (southwestwardly from the Ococan Range) and of 

 Depilto, Jalapa, Jicore, Quilali, Ventuo, and Opoteka (to the 

 northeast from Ococan) have cine del cerros of Eozoic and early 

 Palaeozoic rocks, and exposed on their sides are upper Silurian, 

 Devonian or carboniferous — including the Dios — system of 

 rocks. 



The mountain system of Matagalpa has the Wanque River 

 at its northern, and the Matagalpa River at its southern sur- 

 face boundary. Its present southwestern termination is about 

 Long. 86° 45' W. and Lat. 13° 36' N. (a few leagues 

 southwestardly from the Pueblo San Dionesia); to the southwest 

 of this termination, on lo tlie Gulf of Fonseca, the mountain ridges 

 have been levelled to a low plane, on which are numerous subse- 

 quently elevated intumescent hills and knolls. In this plane the 

 localities once occupied by the mountain ridges are now maiked 

 by the continuation, — southwestwardly, — from the present ter- 

 mination of the ridges to the Gulf of Fonseca, of lodes that in 

 several places are rich in gold; and along near to the lodes are 

 many small knolls or low ridges of pinkish and purplish colored 

 argillaceous gangue of an aluminate of gold (containing Au Alj) in 

 a percentum that could be made profitable to miners. The pres- 

 ent southeastern terminations (it has two) of this mountain system 

 are: the most northerly, the low limestone ridge and hills ter- 

 minating at the Rio Princapulka, a few miles west from the 

 Pueblo Quequena (lower carboniferous limestone there), the other 

 eastern termination is more southerly and is known as the Barbar 

 Mountains, where it breaks off abruptly with jagged edges (not 

 partly smoothed or slickened side surfaces as usual .with faults). 

 The general course of this mountain system is parallel with that 

 of the Nueve Segovia system to the north ; from its western ter- 

 mination, along three-fourths of its length, to the Wanblau 



Mountains ; from thence to its eastern terminations the entire 

 system of ranges and ridges have been bent into a crescent (the 

 concavity facing northeastwardly), or this system of mountains 

 deflects in a curve southeastwardly from the Wanblau Mountains 

 and then northeastwardly to its present termination at the Bar- 

 bar Mountains, excepting the limestone ridges on the north side 

 of the system; these continue parallel with the Nueve Segovia 

 system until they terminate near Quequena in lower carboni- 

 ferous limestone. 



This bend or deflection in the Matagalpa system of mountains 

 forms the hydrographic area of the Rio Bokay, which has eroded 

 a channel through the ridges of limestone. The central range, 

 Pene Blanca, has an exposed longitudinal axis of Eozoic granites 

 and gneiss, flanked usually by formations in the Pateozoic sj s- 

 tem of rocks, and those by Mesozoic or later deposits, limestones 

 occupying a larger area in this than in the mountain system of 

 Nueve Segovia. The Matagalpa system of mountains is probably 

 polygenetic; the long, low, much-eroded ridges of limestone at 

 the north side of the system were evidently elevated subsequent 

 to the curving of the other ranges composing this system. 



The minerals and metals in most common use and of the 

 greatest value discovered in the hydrographic area of the Wanque 

 River are, and their localities are as follows: — 



In Dullsupo Mountains are lodes of ores of silver and copper. 



In the Maculeso Mountains are lodes of ores of silver, tin, ar- 

 senic, antimony, also gold in the gangue in one lode examined, 

 between two different geological formations, and it appears to 

 be a very valuable gold-containing lode. 



In the Santa Maria Ridges are lodes containing gold, and gold 

 and ores of silver, also ores of silver and copper, and a deposit of 

 galena and silver in a fissure 31 feet wide and traceable for more 

 than three miles, also deposits of iron ores and limestones. 



In the Ococan Mountains is a large deposit of lower Silurian or 

 earlier iron ores (Hematite and Titanite) and limestone, the latter 

 between two thick deposits of iron ores. 



In the Depilto Mountains the lodes are rich in galena and sil- 

 ver, also lodes containing gold and ores of silver. 



In the Leuje Hills (east about thirty miles from Dullsupo 

 Mountains) are lodes and deposits rich in gold that is generally 

 about 935 fine. 



In the mountains of Pericon and San Juan del Panacathe lodes 

 contain silver ores and gold, often in particles of size to be seen 

 by the unaided eye; and further to the eastward, in the moun- 

 tains (and creeks) Quilali (the Quilali is a tributary of the Rio 

 Jicore) grains and small masses of platinum have been found 

 associated with gold. 



Crossing the Wanque River, about one mile west from the Rio 

 Phantasma is a large strata of early Palaeozoic, argillaceous slate 

 in which are numerous veins, 1 Mm. to 3 Cm. wide, having a 

 gangue of quartz and ores of silver, and also deposits of silver ores 

 have been interlaminated with the slate. 



From the mouth of the Rio Phantasma, northwardly to the 

 mouth of the Rio Washpook, the difficulties and delays at present 

 associated with the transportation of necessary instruments, 

 provisions, etc., from place to place, are so great (even to a nat- 

 uralist accustomed to excursions along and over mountains, and 

 through forest jungle, and up and down through the cascades 

 and ''rapids" in rivers and creeks) that examinations of sufficient 

 accuracy to record were made only at a comparatively few places, 

 sufficient, however, to ascertain that the numerous lodes in this 

 large area usually contain, as the principal metals, gold and ores 

 of silver ; also there are large deposits of marble and of crypta- 

 crystaline limestone; also placer mines rich in gold have been 

 discovered, especially in the area drained by the southern and 

 eastern tributaries to the Rio Bokay and at the heads of Wylawas, 

 Attawas, Lacoos, and Nagawas Creeks and the southern and 

 southeastern tributaries to the Rio Washpook. 



The gold in these placer mines are in interlamina crevices in 

 slate rooks and in superimposed stratified and partly stratified 

 deposits of drift (sands, gravels, small boulders, and clays) that 

 was eroded and transported by rain floods during the Cham- 

 plain Epoch from terminal and lateral moraine deposits of the 

 Glacial Bpooh. The placer mines containing gold in the eastern 



