GEOLOGIC FOEMATIOKS. 
201 
the mountain vegetation presents the same features as the 
vegetation of the marshes in the north of Europe on soil 
moistened by melting snow.* 
Before we leave the plains of Cumana, and the breccia, or 
calcareous sandstone, which constitutes the soil of the sea- 
side, we will describe the different strata of which this very 
recent formation is composed, as we observed it on the back 
of the bills that surround the castle of San Antonio. 
The breccia, or calcareous sandstone, is a local and partial 
formation, peculiar to the peninsula of Araya, the coasts of 
Cumana, and Caracas. We again found it at Cabo Blanco, 
to the west of the port of Grunyra, where it contains, besides 
broken shells and madrepores, fragments, often angular, of 
quartz and gneiss. 1 his circumstance assimilates the breccia 
to that recent sandstone called by the German mineralogists 
nagdfiuhe, which covers so great a part of Switzerland to 
the height ol a thousand toises, without presenting any trace 
of marine productions. Near Cumana the formation of the 
calcareous breccia contains : — 1st, a compact whitish grev 
limestone, the strata of which, sometimes horizontal, some- 
times irregularly inclined, are from live to six inches thick; 
some beds are almost unmixed with petrifactions, but in the 
greatest part the cardites, the turbinites, the ostracites, and 
shells of small dimension, are found so closely connected, 
that the calcareous matter forms only a cement, by which 
the grains of quartz and the organized bodies are united • 
2dly, a calcareous sandstone, in which the grains of sand are 
much more frequent than the petrified shells; other strata 
lorm a sandstone entirely free from organic fragments, 
yielding but a small effervescence with acids, and enclosing 
not lamellae ol mica, but nodules of compact brown iron-ore: 
3d, beds of indurated clay containing selenite and lamellar 
gypsum. 
The breccia, or agglomerate of the sea-coast, just described, 
lias a white tint, and it lies immediately on the calcareous 
formation ol Cumanacoa, which is of a bluish grev. These 
two rocks form a contrast no less striking than the molasse 
(bur-stone) ot the Pays de Yaud, with the calcareous lime- 
stone ol the J ura. It must be observed, that, bv contact of 
* M alilenberg, <le ' egeutione Hslveliie, et summi Septentrioni», 
Pit. 47, 
