282 CRUISE OF THE BARRERA 



huge falling boulder reached us. Probably this 

 mass of rock had been poised on high for centuries, 

 perhaps needing only a last drop of rain to dissolve 

 its last atom of support and send it hurtling down, 

 crashing through great trees and dislodging tons 

 of rock and debris to follow it to earth. When a 

 thousand or so generations have passed, Guajaibon 

 will be a little mogote of vine-clad limestone frag- 

 ments in the midst of a level plain. Confined 

 upon the little irregular mound of white limestone 

 blocks will live an assemblage of creatures, the 

 dwarfed remnant of a once rich life zone. One 

 can easily imagine some bespectacled naturalist 

 prowling about the stones and speculating upon 

 the fauna, so similar to that of another little 

 mogote to the west and so different from that of 

 another one to the south. Our nature student of 

 the distant future will have the advantage of re- 

 cords kept through a brief moment of cosmic time. 

 When all the little mogotes of to-day were great 

 mountains linked into chains and groups and Dr. 

 Torre's fossil sloth, the Myomorthus, browsed upon 

 their slopes, there were no naturalists potter- 

 ing about to learn and record the facts as they 

 found them. 



