X, A, 3 Smith: Reconnaissance of Mountain Province 185 



In ordei- to reach Manila from Vigan, I boarded a steamer which went 

 around the northwest point of Luzon to Lallo, on Cagayan River, took on 

 tobacco there, and then without stop steamed to Manila. An opportunity 

 was, therefore, given me to see, even though but hurriedly, the mouth of 

 the Rio Grande de Cagayan. It is uncommonly broad and flat, and numer- 

 ous sand banks which change their position each year after the rainy 

 season make navigation difficult. It is possible to go as far as Tuguegarao, 

 the capital of Cagayan Province, by using very light-draught steamers. It 

 is to be hoped that the Spanish administration, which recently has been 

 disposed to pay greater attention to this fine colony, will open the river, 

 which is an important and beneficial artery of transportation for the 

 tobacco district, by regulating and controlling its channel. At Lallo I 

 found the banks of the river to be constituted almost entirely of heaps of 

 Anodonta and Unio shells. 



If we now review the observations made during my journey through 

 northern Luzon, we shall distinguish five important groups of rocks: (1) 

 The coral reefs and breccias of coralline limestone with recent volcanic 

 rocks; (2) the tuflfs and tuff-sandstones associated at places with coralline 

 limestone beds and marls with plant remains; (3) recent eruptive rocks 

 (quartz-trachyte, sanidine-hornblende-trachyte, hornblende-andesite, and 

 dolerite) ; (4) the Agno beds, a mighty system of coarse sandstones and 

 conglomerates, which have been derived from the underlying diabase 

 and aphanitic rocks; and (5) diorite, protogine gneiss, and chlorine schist. 



There can be no doubt that the coralline limestones belong to the most 

 recent rocks occurring in northern Luzon. They always form the uppermost 

 member of all formations, and with the exception of Benguet, where they 

 are covered with a thin layer of red earth, I failed to find these limestones 

 beneath other rocks. As has been said, they contain a number of coral 

 fragments which, unfortunately, are in a poor state of preservation; they 

 contain, although only in limited numbers, remains of lamellibranchs, 

 gastropods, echinoderms, etc. All of these fossils have, however, suffered 

 very much on account of the crystallization of the limestone. My highly 

 honored friend, Mr. Neodor Fuchs, curator at the Imperial Cabinet in 

 Vienna, at my request conducted an examination of corals occurring in 

 the coral reefs of northern Luzon, as well as of the similar coral obtained 

 at an earlier date in southern Luzon, and has reported his results as 

 follows : 



"The corals in question occurring in the limestone of northern and 

 southern Luzon are in a condition of preservation that reminds one of our 

 nummulitic limestones, so that according to European occurrences the 

 specimens might from their outward appearence be considered at least as 

 old as the Eocene." 



A more extensive examination of the same material undertaken by me 

 in conjunction with my honored friend Doctor von Marenzeller, in charge 

 of the collection of the Zoological Court Cabinet, led also to substantially 

 the same results. 



Even though it was impossible to give a i-eliable specific report on account 

 of the poor state of preservation of the fossils, it nevertheless was possible 

 for us to declare with certainty that, with the exception of one single piece, 

 which we could not identify, all of the rest belonged to genera which occur 

 to-day in great abundance in the Indian Ocean, and even the individual 

 corals can be referred without any question to living types. The corals 



