The coast-line of Hayti forms a portion of a considerable area of elevation. There are no active volcanoes in the island, but earthquakes are not infrequent. Rocks of earlier than Secondary date have not yet been discovered; the most ancient, consisting of slates, conglomerates, and limestones, and forming as it were the core of the island, have been disturbed and intersected by intrusive masses of a syenitic character. Flanking the slates and other rocks of the Sierra there is in the northern and in part of the southern side of Hayti a broad development of Tertiary deposits, which are skirted by more recent limestones and gravels. The Sierra, forming the central mountain mass that runs the length of the eastern republic, and constituting in the main the peninsula of Samana, and also a small outlier near Porto Plata, is throughout composed of much-uptilted and usually strongly-folded metamorphic rocks, which appear to have originally been clay-shales, sandstones, sandstone-conglomerate, and limestone. These are most disturbed in the western two-thirds of the island, where they are broken in places by dykes. The quartz veins occurring in the slates near eruptive masses are auriferous, as also are the sands of streams running through the metamorphic rocks, if in the neighbourhood of syenite. Thus the waters of the Nigua, Jaina, Nizao, Ocoa, and most of the tributaries of the Yaqui that descend from the northern flank of Cibao carry gold, though rarely in any notable quantity. The lignite found in the Upper Miocene beds is exceedingly impure, and nowhere more than 3 or 4 inches in thickness. The mineral products include gold, platinum, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, manganese, antimony, sulphur, marble, opal, calcedony, lazulite, rock-salt, and bitumen; and mineral springs—ferruginous, sulphurous, and of other kinds—abound. The fossil forms of the Miocene strata are allied to those of the west coast of South America, and forcibly suggest the conclusion that during some portion of the Miocene period the Pacific and Atlantic freely intercommunicated. For details concerning the geology of Hayti see Professor Gabb, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., xv. 49, and, on the Miocene fossils, Guppy, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., xxxii., 1876, p. 516.
The fauna of Hayti is not extensive. The agouti is the largest wild mammal. Birds are few, excepting water-fowl and pigeons. Snakes abound, though few are venomous. Lizards are numerous, and insects swarm in the low parts, with tarantulas, scorpions, and centipedes. Caymans are found in the lakes and rivers, and the waters teem with fish and other sea food. Wild cattle, hogs, and dogs, descendants of those brought from Europe, roam at large on the plains and in the forests. The wild hogs furnish much sport to the natives, who hunt them with dogs trained for the purpose.
In richness and variety of vegetable products Hayti is not excelled by any other country in the world. All tropical plants and trees grow there in perfection, and nearly all the vegetables and fruits of temperate climates may be successfully cultivated in its highlands. Among its indigenous productions are cotton, rice, maize, tobacco, cocoa, ginger, native indigo (indigo marron or sauvage), arrowroot, manioc or cassava, pimento, banana, plantain, pine-apple, artichoke, yam, and sweet potato. Among its important plants and fruits are sugar-cane, coffee, indigo (called indigo franc, to distinguish it from the native), melons, the legumes, cabbage, lucerne, guinea grass, bamboo, and the breadfruit, mango, caimite, orange, almond, apple, grape, mulberry, and fig. Most of the imported fruits have degenerated from want of care, and the bamboo has been attacked by an insect which prevents its wide diffusion; but the mango, now spread over nearly the whole island, has become almost a necessary article of food; the bread fruit has likewise become common, but is not so much esteemed. Hayti is also rich in woods, especially in cabinet and dye woods; among the former are mahogany, manchineel, satinwood, rosewood, cinnamon wood, yellow acoma, and gri-gri; and among the latter are Brazil wood, logwood, fustic, and sassafras. On the mountains are extensive forests of pine and a species of oak; and in various parts occur the locust, ironwood, cypress or Bermuda cedar, palmetto, and many kinds of palms.
