HISTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS 643 



fossils. 15 The paper is largely a compilation from Burckhardt's mono- 

 graphs. Of the 47 species listed, 27 were not determined specifically, 

 4 were generically and specifically incorrect, one was generically incor- 

 rect, 6 were identified by OTonnell, 6 were not described, and 3 were 

 new but inadequately described. The illustrations, while poor, indicate 

 the richness of the Cuban fauna, but the paper unfortunately is of little 

 scientific value because of its inaccuracy and of the substitution of 

 Burckhardt's descriptions of Mexican species for the descriptions which 

 one would expect to find in a paper on the Cuban fauna. 16 



Typical Sections of the Jurassic in the Peovince of 



Pinar del Rio 



GENERAL STATEMENT 



The Province of Pinar del Rio, constituting the western extremity of 

 the -island of Cuba, is about 75 kilometers in width, from north to south, 

 and 275 kilometers in length, from northeast to southwest. Physio- 

 graphically it consists of a northern chain of mountains with a southwest 

 trend, changing to almost due south in the western part. The eastern 

 half of this mountain chain is called the Sierra de Los Organos, or Organ 

 Mountains, and is the region which was particularly studied. The 

 southern flanks of the mountains are overlapped by a series of Tertiary 

 and Recent coastal plain strata dipping gently south to southeast. A 

 section made along a south-north line from any point on the coastal 

 plain, as, for example, Candelaria or San Cristobal, northward into the 

 heart of the mountains, reveals approximately a similar succession of 

 strata. On the plains are Recent or Pleistocene deposits, then follow out- 

 crops of Miocene and Oligocene. the thick limestones of the Cretaceous, 

 and finally the Jurassic beds, which form the main mountain ridges 

 (figure 1.) The Jurassic strata dip southward under the. later beds and 

 apparently are continuous under the shallow Gulf of Batabano, for they 

 appear again in the Isle of Pines, 60 miles south of the present southern 

 shoreline of Cuba, from which it is separated by water not more than 

 ten fathoms deep. 



In the eastern part of the Province of Pinar del Rio Tertiary rocks 

 are encountered, these being an extension of the plain upon which 

 Havana is built. To the north of Artemisa the Organ Mountains rise 



13 Mario Sanchez Roig : La Fauna Jur&sica de Vifiales. Republica de Cuba, Secretana 

 de Agricultural Comercio y Trabajo, Boletin Especial. 1920. 61 pp., 23 plates. 



38 Roig's paper has been reviewed by O'Connell, 1920, The Jurassic ammonite fauna 

 of Cuba, loc. cit., p. 644, and will be more fully discussed in the forthcoming memoir on 

 The Jurassic of Cuba. 



