s 
for the earth movements I have described in 
ray paper entitled the “ Growth of Trinidad," 
to which I refer for further particulars ou 
the subject. In reference to the new road 
I spoke of, it is not difficult to perceive that 
the advantage conferred by it on the valley 
of Santa Cruz could be repeated in the case of 
the Maracas and Caura valleys by. the con 
struction of a highway on similar lines. 
But I suppose that the interests of the 
San Juan people were not strong^ enough to 
oppose the making of the road to Santa Cruz 
whereas those of St. Joseph, Tunapuna, and 
Tacarigua are too strong to allow of such 
improvements for the Maracas and Caura 
valleys. It is another instance of how the 
public interest is often postponed to that 
of individuals. Parenthetically 1 may recall 
to your memory that the specimen of gold I 
exhibited in this room some years ago 
came from a boulder found in one of these 
alluvial moraines. The valley up which 
we go is narrow in its lower portion and 
may be likened in cross section to the letter 
V. ‘ This feature, though of later geological 
date, is dependent upon the same circum¬ 
stances as the existence, of the alluvial 
moraines and like that it becomes more 
pronounced as we go east; the lower part 
of the Maracas valley being more clearly 
V-shaped and the Caura and Aruka valleys 
still more so. The Santa Cruz valley on the 
other hand is more l -shaped. But as we 
go further north up the valley we find it 
to expand in width rather suddenly. The 
causes of this phenomenon have been de¬ 
scribed by me in my paper published by 
the Canadian Institute and expounded by 
tue in this room on June H, 1905. To gain 
some idea of the enormous amount of 
denudation which has taken place in these 
northern mountains we must take our 
stand at some distance to the south o( the 
line of their base. Then looking noith and 
carrying an imaginary line from peak to 
peak at some height above their present 
level and imaginingall the space bet ween this 
imaginary line or rather plane and the bott om 
of the valleys to he filled up with rock we 
can see more or less imperfectly what a 
quantity of matter has been removed to 
form these valleys. Taking the sea level as 
a base, the quantity removed is indeed far 
greater than what remains. The immense 
quantities of matter thus removed by de¬ 
nudation in various parts of the world so 
staggered geologists that they sought to 
explain the phenomena by means of universal 
deluges and cataclysms. Such ideas are not 
