PHYSICAL ASPECT. 



133 



layers of oxidized iron, mixed with silica and clay ? 

 or with a red sandy marl lying upon the limestone. 1 

 All this formation I shall call Guines limestone, to 

 distinguish it from another much more modern for- 

 mation in the hills of San Juan, near Trinidad ; whose 

 peaks remind me of the limestone mountains of 

 Caripe, in the vicinity of Oumana. It contains also 

 great caverns near Matanzas and Jaruco. I have not 

 learned that any fossil bones have been found in 

 them. This frequency of caverns, in which the 

 rains accumulate and the brooks disappear, some- 

 times causes great disasters. 2 I believe the gypsum 

 of Cuba is not found in the tertiary, but in the 

 secondary formations. It is worked in many places 

 east of Matanzas, at San Antonio de los Banos, 

 where it contains sulphur, and in the cays off San 

 Juan de los Eemedios. 



We should not confound with this Guines (jurassic) 

 limestone, sometimes porous and sometimes compact, 

 another formation, so modern, that we may believe 

 it still grows in our own time. I speak of the conglo- 

 merate limestone which I have observed in the cays 

 or small islands lining the coast between Batabano 

 and the Bay of Jagua, south of the Zapata swamp, 



1 Sand and iron-sand. — H. 



2 As in the case of the ruin of the old tobacco mills of the royal 

 monopoly. — H. 



