THE TERTIARY GROUP. 
16 ? 
Yfeeds and living polypi, we And enormous masses of madre- 
pores and other lithophyte corals set in the texture of those 
shelves. We are at first tempted to admit, that the whole 
®f this limestone rock, which constitutes the principal por- 
tion of the island of Cuba, may be traced to an unmterrupted 
Operation of nature, — to the action of productive organic 
forces — an action which continues in our days in the bosom 
of the ocean ; but this apparent novelty of limestone forma- 
tions soon vanishes when we quit the shore, and recollect 
the series of coral rocks which contain the formations of 
different ages, the muschelkalk, the J ura limestone, and 
coarse limestone. The same coral rocks as those of the 
Castillo and La Punta ai'e found in the lofty inland moun- 
tains, accompanied with petrifications of bivalve shells, very 
different from those now seen on the coasts of the Aiitilles. 
Without positively assigning a determinate place in the 
table of formations to the limestone of G-uines, which is 
that of the Castillo and La Punta, I have no doubt of the 
relative antiquity of that rock with respect to the calcareous 
Agglomerate of the Cayos, situated south of Batabano, and 
east of the island of Pinos. The globe has undergone great 
revolutions between the periods when these two soils were 
formed; the one containing the great caverns of Matanzas, the 
other daily augmenting by the agglutination of fragments 
of coral and quartzose sand. On the south of the island of 
fhiba, the latter soQ seems to repose sometimes on the Jura 
limestone of Guines, as in the Jardiuillos, and sometimes 
(towards Cape Cruz) immediately over primitive rockg. In 
the lesser Antilles, the corals are covered with volcanic 
productions. Several of the Cayos of the island of Cuba con- 
tain fresh water; and I found this water very good in the 
middle of the Cayo de Piedras. When we reflect on the 
extreme smallness of these islands, we can scarcely believe that 
the fresh-water wells are filled with rain-water not evaporated. 
m the manganese which we recognize by some dendrites? ITie sea, 
filtering into the clefts of the rocks, and in a cavern at the foot of the 
Castillo del Morro, compresses the air, and makes it issue with a tre- 
viendous noise. This noise explains the phenomena of the “ baxos ron- 
cadores,” (snoring bocabeoos), so well known to navigators who cross 
from Jamaica to the mouth of Bio San Juan of Nicaragua, or to the 
^land of San Andres. 
