SECO>’DAET LIMESTONES. 
393 
II.avarmaTi and Batabano, and between tbe port of Trinidad 
and Bio Guaiirabo),as well in tbe small Cayman Islanda. 
1 bare hitherto described the secondary limestone forma- 
tions of tbe littoral chain without giving them the systematic 
names which may connect them with the formations of 
Europe. During my stay in America, I took the lime- 
stone of Cumanacoa for zechstein or Alpine limestone, 
and that of Caripe for Jura limestone. The carburetted 
•and slightly bituminous marl of Cumanacoa, analogous ^ 
to tbo strata of bituminous slate, which are very nume- 
rous* in the Alps of southern Bavaria, appeared to me 
to charactcri/.e tlio former of these formations ; while the 
dazzlin'^ whiteness of the cavernous stratum of Caripe, and the 
form of those shelves of rocks rising in walls and cornices, 
forcibly reminded mo of the Jura limestone of Streitberg 
in Eriincoiiia, or of Oitzow and Krzessowic, in Upper 
Silesia. There is in Venezuela a suppression of the difterent 
strata which, in the old coutincnt, separate zechstein from 
Jura limestone. The sandstone of Coeollar, which some- 
times covers tbe limestone of Cumanacoa, maybe considered 
as variegated sandstone ; but it is more probable that in 
alternating by layers with the limestone of Cumanacoa, it 
is sometimes thrown to the upper limit of the formation 
to which it belongs. The zechstein of Europe also con- 
tains a very quartzoso sandstone. The two limestone strata 
of Ciimanaco and Caripe succeed immediately each other, 
uke Alpine and Jura limestone, on the western declivity 
of tiie Mexican table-land, between Sopilote, Mescala, and 
Tehuilotepcc. These formations, perhaps, pass from one to 
the other, so that the latter may be only an upper shelf of 
zechstein. This immediate covering, this suppression of 
interposed soils, this simplicity of structure, and absence of 
oolitic strata, have been equally observed in Upper Sdesia 
and in the Pyrenees. On the other hand, the immediate 
superposition of the limestone of Cumanacoa on mica-slate 
and transition clay- slate,— the rarity of the petrifactions 
ivhich have not yct’beeii sufficiently examined, — the strata of 
silex passing to 'Lydian stone, may lead to the belief that 
the soils of Cumanacoa and Caripe arc of much more ancient 
• I fou nd them also in the Peruvian Andes, near Montau, at the height 
of 1600 toises. 
