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National Geographic : 1899 Mar
Contents
PORTO RICO A MOUNTAIN STREAM, SIERRA LUQUILLO and Virgin islands, are largely of one general physiographic type, while the coast-border topography is more complex and diversi fied, consisting of three subtypes, which may be called coast hills, parting valleys, and playa plains. The mountains constitute the major surface of the island, ap proximately nine-tenths of the whole. The other features collect ively make an irregular and lower lying belt around the coastal margin comparable to the narrow rim of a high-crowned alpine hat. In fact, the whole island is practically an elongated elevated sierra, made up mostly of volcanic rock, surrounded by a nar row collar or dado of limestone hills, formerly marginal marine incrustations which have been elevated. Viewed from the sea these mountains have a rugged and serrated aspect, consisting of numerous peaks and summits void of a definite crest line, rising from a general mass whose steeply sloping sides are deeply cor rugated by drainageways, so that they have the aspect of a wrinkled handkerchief-a figure of description ascribed to Co lumbus in telling Queen Isabella of the Antilles. Their superfice has been etched by erosion into innumerable gabled lateral ridges (cuchillas) separated by deep V-shaped gorges. This type of mountainous configuration has been described by Davis as a dissected range, while the angular lateral ribs or salients are known in Cuba as cuchillas (knives). This sculpture is so peculiar to the central mountains of the island that it forms a ready means of differentiating them from the foothills. The mountain region has a long and relatively gentler inclination toward the north coast and falls off more ab-
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