THE 



National Geographic Magazine 



Vol. IX MAY, 1898 No. 5 



CUBA 



By Robert T. Hill, 

 United Slates Geological Survey 



SITUATION AND GEOGRAPHIC RELATIONS 



Cuba is the westernmost and largest of the four islands known 

 as the Great Antilles. These, with the Virgin islands at their 

 eastern end, stretch east and west for over 1,350 miles, and con- 

 stitute a distinct geographic province — distinct in relief, geologic 

 formation, and history from the other West India islands and 

 the adjacent mainlands. 



In their climate and vegetation, as in their topographic fea- 

 tures or geologic history, the Antilles have no affinities with 

 conditions with which we are familiar in the United States. 

 Their whole aspect is tropical, yet they possess so many unique 

 individual features, differing from those of other tropical lands, 

 that they belong in a class entirely by themselves. The causes 

 of this individuality are involved in a peculiar geologic history, 

 which can be dwelt upon here only to the extent of stating that 

 it has produced certain peculiarities of configuration and given 

 origin to formations which weather into soils of unusual pro- 

 ductiveness. 



Collectively the Great Antilles consist of a disconnected chain 

 of mountains (the Antillean system) protruding above the sea 

 and having an east-west trend directly transverse to that of the 

 axial continental Cordilleras. The highest peaks of this system 

 in Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica are 11,000, 9,000, and 7,000 feet 

 respectively. These mountains of deformation are irregularly 



