128 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 23, 



La Salada. — These specimens also have a general aspect diiFermg 

 from that of the other local groups ; hut like all the others, they are 

 either found in silt or vegetable mould, or lie exposed upon the sur- 

 face of the sandstone amid straggling tufts of grass and stubble. 

 This fact explains why most of the corals and many of the shells 

 sent on a former occasion seemed to have been taken from a vege- 

 table soil, and were suspected to be recent. 



The sandstone in situ has no fossils, wherever 1 have met with it. 



There is no doubt that the entire plain, from Santiago to Monte 

 Christi, is continuously covered with various interesting fossils, that 

 would amply reward the curiosity of such as have the command of 

 time and means to make the necessary researches. 



River Cana. — Red sandstone in horizontal strata. — The bed of this 

 stream, from the Falls to Rompino, is very narrow, deep, and laborious 

 to investigate. It has cut through the superincumbent loose materials, 

 apparentlycomposedof the debris of sandstone and gravel that compose 

 the plain, and pursues its course over a clean sheet of sandstone rock. 



Excepting from below the Samba Hills, which could not be ex- 

 amined, the blue shale has either been stripped off, or was not deposited 

 here, thinning off in quantity as it approached the locality between the 

 Sambas and the Falls ; of which there are indications at Los Que- 

 mados, as well as of an increase in the argillo-calcareous shale No. 5 of 

 Cercado, which is here very prominent. 



The few fossils attributed to this locality were taken chiefly from 

 the sandstone plain of Savaneta. Large Conchifera of the family of 

 Arcacea are in great abundance ; they cover the surface in patches of 

 compact seams. 



The falls of this river are caused by the obstruction of a mass of 

 igneous rock, over which the stream has a perpendicular descent of 

 above 100 feet. 



Savaneta. — The plain between Savaneta and the Hills of Samba 

 is of red sandstone in horizontal strata, covered conformably by some 

 seams of loose sand and gravel. 



This plain near San Jose abounds in fossil trees, whose entire trunks 

 lie extended on the surface ; many of them measure above 20 feet long, 

 and 1 2 inches in diameter. They appear to have been jointed. The 

 plain is also abundantly covered with fossil Conchifera, as already 

 noticed under the head of River Cana. 



Savaneta is another village I traced, on the skirts of the Cibao 

 Range. There is here an oblong patch of igneous rock extending 

 from the River Guayuvin to near the Amina. 



From Savaneta to the south-west, approaching the Cibao Moun- 

 tains, the fundamental strata follow each other in the following 

 order : — Mica schist associated with quartz, Limestone, Conglomerates, 

 Serpentine, Quartz, Chloritic schists, and Gneiss, all in nearly per- 

 pendicular strata, — dip N.N.E. The country south of Savaneta is 

 covered with pine-forests. 



Monte Christi Mountains. — The limestone of the Monte Christi 

 Cordillera is mostly in large detached masses on the southern face 

 of the mountains ; I have met M'ith no fossils in it, and the stratifica- 

 tion is very obscure. 



