File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17537843424).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo13amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
999 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL are represented, bats, rodents and insectivores, the latter two by a single species each. Covered as this island is with a luxuriant growth of subtropi- cal vegetation, there are comparatively few exposures of the underlying rocks and those showing are of igne- ous or oceanic origin, in which land animal remains are not found. A comprehensive series of fossil ani- mals, those forms that had lived there prior to the advent of man, would serve to determine the early history of this isl and. It was there- fore of great interest when the discovery of a fossil sloth jaw was announced in 1860. In 1868 Dr. Joseph Leidy named this creature Mega- locnus rodens and determined it to be related to the South American Pleisto- cene animal Mega- therium. The au- thenticity of its origin in Cuba has been questioned however by some geologists until lately. Additional light was thrown on the former animal life of this island when that enthusiastic Cuban naturalist, Dr. Carlos de la Torre, presented a paper before the International Geological Congress in Stockholm in 1910 and exhibited many fossils collected by him in northern Cuba. In response to a request from Dr. La Torre I went to Cuba in 1911 to aid him in further search for fossil remains. In company with Dr. La Torre and his assistant, Mr. Victor Rodriguez, I left Havana one morning in June destined for the little town of Caibarien on the north shore, to reach which we traveled a day through sugar plantations, groves of royal palms and rural scenes so interesting one is loath to dismiss them with the term picturesque.
Text Appearing After Image:
Entrance to the cave of Jatibonico. The black line above the entrance is not a crack but the covered passage of termites, a species of white ant which cannot stand strong light Throughout Cuba, caves and Assures are of frequent occur- rence, leached out of the limestone rocks by the chemical action of water

Note About Images