FAUNA OF THE WEST INDIES. 139 



ian type found in the Pleistocene caves. There is one species of SolcnO' 

 don in Cuba and one in Haiti. It is a small Insectivore and considered 

 to be related to a Madagascar type. There is also one Madagascar tyi)e 

 of Iguana in the West Indies, and two American snakes are represented 

 in Africa (Goode). There is a large number of species of bats. Several 

 early writers speak of Columbus finding dumb dogs in Cuba (Herrara 

 and others). Whether or not a dog, it should be noted that there are 

 wild dogs in Cuba supposed to be the descendants of the domesticated 

 animals run wild. However this may be, from the remarkable ap])ear- 

 ance of these animals a suggestion would arise that some other blood had 

 been infused in them. The heads of the partly groAvn dogs seen by the 

 writer had an appearance between that of a small pig and a bear's cub, 

 and the animal is remarkably clumsy. 



The introduction of the few small animals named into the West Indies 

 appears to date from the Pleistocene elevation and modified during the 

 succeeding epochs, being capable of surviving the changes of level and 

 the contraction of the islands to small size. The mammalian life of 

 Florida has been a recent introduction since the Columbia submergence 

 and subsequent reelevation. 



Summary. 



The restoration of the Antillean bridge between the two Americas is 

 based on the discovery of submerged system of drainage valleys, which 

 now constitute fjords, and their relationship to the buried valleys along 

 the coast of the continent and islands. The valleys of the mountains 

 and these extending across the coastal plains are all the result of atmos- 

 pheric erosion, but their lower reaches are very broad and deeply buried 

 by late accumulations on account of recent subsidences. These valleys 

 are compared with the fjords crossing the coastal ])lains and shelves 

 to the abysmal depths. The geomorph}- is exemplified in the effects of 

 erosion, and this is modified l)y the altitude of the land and l)y the 

 epeirogenic or gentle continental undulations of tlie eartli's crust with- 

 out obliterating the forms of the valleys, which, althougli drowned, in- 

 crease in magnitude in their descent and receive tributaries from all 

 directions. These recognizable fjords or submerged valleys are so nu- 

 merous that if errors of observation occur in some of the data the gen- 

 eral results are not impaired. Many of them are traceable to depths of 

 over two miles along the Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean coasts. The 

 measurements of the fjords give data for calculating the late continental 

 elevation of the region. From the ai)i)lication of the (piantitative move- 

 ments it becomes apparent that the continent stood as high as the fjords 

 are deep, less some correction for une(iual subsidence of the continental 



