OF SAKTO DOMINC^O. 195 



respect, though differing in the absence of organic i-emains. In the whole region 

 there is but little of the talcose slate so common on the north side and in the eastern 

 half of the range. 



South of Maniel along the canon of the Ocoa River, the hills show a succession of 

 broad, rounded undulations of dai'k-colored strata of shale and thin bedded sand- 

 stones. They are so little metamorphosed that I searched them carefully in hopes of 

 finding fossils. I do not consider my total want of success as proof that they do not 

 exist. With more time to devote to the search I might have been more fortunate. 

 Just before the river emerges from the hills on the east side, there is a little creek 

 called the Arroyo Salado, the water of which is so saline that when it evaporates in 

 the dry season it leaves little incrustations of salt in the rocky basins. The rock 

 which yields the salt is a red shale, the same as that found further north in the hills, 

 differing only in color. I found in it a few concretions of nearly black, semi-crystal- 

 line calcareous matter. At the lower part of the same creek, the shales crop out 

 with beds of sandstone, the latter forming long reef-like I'idges, projecting above the 

 softer material. Here a few springs similarly but less saline trickle down the banks, 

 and leave a white incrustation over the surface. All of the rocks of this vicinity about 

 Honduras, and even out in the plain about Savana Buey, dip at moderately low 

 angles southward. At the latter place argillaceous and sandy shales of a brown 

 color crop out through the soil of the plain, and on the margins of a high terrace 

 bordering the Ocoa River. But in the Loma de las Tablas, a nearly isolated hill, a 

 little east of the line of the section, heavy bedded sandstones but slightly altered 

 seem to be locally upheaved and striking nearly north and south dip east as high 

 as 50^ 



A similar local upheaval occurs just west of Bani in the Loma del Pueblo, but 

 here the rock is a cream-colored limestone with siliceous streaks. I did not attempt 

 the ascent of either Mount Barbacoa or los Pinos, but ascending the canon of the 

 Bani River approached near to the south base of the former. Far up this stream 

 there is a little collection of houses called Recol, perched on the hill sides and strag- 

 gling along tha canon. The people cultivate a little coffee, for which the soil is un- 

 usually well adapted. At Recol I found a very solid black claystone, and a dark 

 greenish porous shale, both of them characterized by minute Avhite grains scattered 

 through the mass. They are highly metamorphosed forms of the same shales as those 

 seen on the Ocoa, having a corresponding east and west strike. 



Further down the canon a few small streaks of pyrites have given rise to the 

 opinion of the existence of copper deposits. I found nothing beyond a little sul- 

 phuret of iron. 



