These mines are in the form of terraces, that are cut into the sides of the mountains, so that the ore can be easily withdrawn and shipped to the United States for smelting purposes. These properties have recently changed hands, and with the investment of greater capital will soon be put into a still higher state of production. Perhaps the most profitable iron mines in the Republic are those owned by the Bethlehem Steel Company, in the Valley of the Mayari, some eighteen or twenty miles back from the coast. The mineral here is easily removed from the surface, and sent by gravity down to the large reducing mills on the shore of the Bay, where most of the waste material is washed out with water. The iron ore of Oriente is of a very high grade and is impregnated with a sufficient amount of nickel to add greatly to its value. The recent demand for chrome, brought about by the enormous increase in the consumption of steel in the United States, brought the chrome districts of the world, including those of Cuba, into considerable prominence. The great shortage of tonnage, too, made it inconvenient to bring chrome from Brazil. Recent investigations made in Cuba, however, demonstrated the fact that this Province alone, with the investment of a few hundred thousand dollars in road building, can supply the mills of the United States with all the chrome and manganese needed for the development of the steel industries. Several manganese mines are being worked at the present time, most of them on the northern slope of the Sierra Maestra, whence the ore is conveyed by rail to Santiago de Cuba and shipped to Atlantic ports, where the demand is greatest. The development of the mining industry in Oriente has hardly begun, but with the enormous amount of iron and copper that will be needed for building purposes throughout the world in the near future, there is every reason to believe that this province will have an opportunity to open up and to work many of her mines, with very satisfactory returns on the capital invested. CHAPTER X THE ISLE OF PINES Although from the early days of Spanish conquest the Isle of Pines was considered by Spain as an integral part of Cuba, as are Cayo Romano and all other adjacent islands, in the treaty of Paris that concluded the controversy in regard to Spain’s possessions in the West Indies the Isle of Pines was referred to as a locality distinct in itself, and as possibly not coming within the jurisdiction of Cuban territory. A rule placed on any mariner’s chart of the West Indies, connecting in a straight line Cabo Cruz, in the Province of Oriente, and Cape San Antonio, the western extremity of Cuba, includes the Isle of Pines within the limits of the seismic uplift which formed the Pearl of the Antilles. More than all, during much of the geological history of the region across the shallow sandy bed, covered now with only a few fathoms of water, the Isle of Pines was connected by land with Cuba.