194 CUBA 



flanked below 2,000 feet by horizontal benches or terraces, which 

 are the result of regional elevations and base-leveling after the 

 last period of mountain-making in Miocene time. The Antil- 

 lean uplift ma}'' be compared to an inverted, elongated canoe, 

 the highest and central part of which is in the region adjacent 

 to the Windward passage. Tims it is that the higher peaks 

 occur in Haiti, eastern Cuba, and eastern Jamaica, while the 

 arching crest line descends toward the western part of the two 

 latter islands and, on the east, toward Porto Rico. The higher 

 mountains are composed of non-calcareous clay conglomerate 

 and igneous rock, the debris of unknown lands of pre-Tertiary 

 time, which, with the exception of a few restricted points, were 

 buried, during a profound subsidence in early Tertiary time, be- 

 neath a vast accumulation of calcareous oceanic sediments now 

 composing the white limestones which constitute the chief for- 

 mations of the islands, and which were, together with the pre- 

 ceding formations, elevated into their present position at the 

 close of the Tertiary period.* The mountains above 2,000 feet are 

 composed of the older non-calcareous formations and the border- 

 ing plateaus of limestone, resulting in two distinct and contrast- 

 ing t}rpes of soil throughout the Antilles. 



STRATEGIC AND COMMERCIAL POSITION 



In area, in natural resources, in the number and character of 

 its inhabitants, in position as regards proximity to the American 

 and Mexican seaboards, strategically Cuba is by far the most im- 

 portant of the Great Antilles. It is very near the center of the 

 great American Mediterranean, separating the Gulf of Mexico 

 from the Caribbean sea, and in close proximity^to our southern 



*The general geology of the island, while not discussed in this article, is well shown 

 in many of the illustrations. It may be briefly stated as consisting of an older base- 

 ment of pre-Tertiary sedimentary rocks, in which Cretaceous and probably Jurassic 

 fossils have been found. Above this there are, first, littoral beds composed of terrig- 

 enous material, and then a great thickness of white limestones consisting of organ- 

 ically derived oceanic material, as distinguished from true reef rock of late Eocene 

 and Oligocene age. The island was reclaimed from the sea and assumed its present 

 relief by a great mountain-making movement in late Tertiary time, succeeding the 

 deposition of these limestones. In later epochs, Pliocene and Pleistocene, the island 

 underwent a series of epeirogenic subsidences and elevations which affected the 

 coastal borders, producing the wave-cut cliffs and a margin of elevated reef rock which 

 borders the coast in many places, as can be recognized in the illustrations of the cities 

 of Habana and Baracoa. So far as its history is known, the island has never been con- 

 nected with the American mainland, although such has frequently been asserted to be 

 the case. These assertions have been based upon the erroneous identification of cer- 

 tain vertebrate animal remains. There are no traces in the animal life of Cuba, past or 

 present, which justify this conclusion. Some of the crystalline rocks may be ancient, 

 but most of them are mid-Tertiary in age. 



