“It is interesting to note that along the Cuban coast precisely similar basins are now being excavated which would form pouch-shaped harbors if the land should be slightly depressed. Several such basins were observed eastward from Santiago. If the coast at Matanzas were to sink thirty feet or more, a portion of the Yumuri valley would be flooded, forming a broad basin connected with the sea by a narrow entrance, the present Yumuri Gorge.”
The chief harbors of the type in question are those of Habana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago de Cuba. Other important harbors, more or less of the same formation, are Bahia Honda, Nuevitas, Gibara, Nipe Bay and Baracoa. Matanzas and Cardenas are exceptions. By far the greater number of good harbors are on the north coast. On the south, aside from those which have already been mentioned, Guantanamo Bay is the only one of consequence. Other harbors on this side of the Island, such as Manzanillo and Batabano are merely open roadsteads, generally lacking in depth, and securing more or less shelter from outlying keys and reefs.
Cuba was reclaimed from the sea by a great mountain-making movement in late tertiary time. During the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs the Island underwent a series of subsidences and elevations which affected the coastal borders, and the margin of elevated rock-reef which borders the coast in parts, as
A STREET IN SANTIAGO DE CUBA.
in the vicinities of Habana and Baracoa. So far as its geologic history is known, the Island was never connected with the American mainland, although the contrary assertion has frequently been made.
No thorough geological survey of Cuba has ever been made, but there is every evidence of its containing rich deposits of minerals, including gold, silver, copper, iron, manganese, and asphalt. Traces of minerals are found extensively throughout the Island. Oriente Province is the first in mineral wealth, followed by Camaguey. In Santa Clara, indications of copper are seen on every hand. The ore is commonly turned up by the plow upon the hillsides. Asphalt is found in widely scattered localities all over the Island. The northern coast of the Province of Matanzas appears to be entirely underlaid with it, and the Bay of Cardenas is bottomed by a deposit which used to be worked by vessels anchored over it. The Cuban asphalt is of a high grade, a considerable proportion of it containing as much as seventy per cent. bitumen. Grahamite, a mineral of the same species as asphalt, but classed as pure bitumen, is found in Habana Province and other parts of the Island. The only mineral resource that is at all adequately exploited is iron. The mines of Oriente, which are famous, will be referred to more extensively in a later portion of the book.
Vegetation is superlatively abundant in Cuba. The flora includes three thousand three hundred and fifty native plants, not to mention the considerable number that have been naturalized. The trees embrace a variety of hardwoods. Over thirty species of palm are found in the Island, and the pine of the temperate zone grows in proximity to the mahogany of the tropics. The forest has been recklessly exploited or destroyed, but it is estimated that thirteen million acres of it remain.