418 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



wider prospect than is to be had from many a more im- 

 posing mountain ; for the surrounding plain, covered with 

 forests and ploughed by countless rivers, stretches away 

 for hundreds of leagues in every direction, without any 

 object to obstruct the view. Standing on the brow of the 

 Serra, with the numerous lakes intersecting the lowlands 

 at its base, you look across the valley of the Amazons, 

 as far as the eye can reach, and through its centre you 

 follow for miles on either side the broad flood of the great 

 river, carrying its yellow waters to the sea. As I stood 

 there, panoramas from the Swiss mountains came up to 

 my memory, and I fancied myself on the Alps, looking 

 across the plain of Switzerland instead of the bed of the 

 Amazons ; the distant line of the Santarem hills on the 

 southern bank of the river, and lower than the northern 

 chain, representing the Jura range. As if to complete 

 the comparison, Alpine lichens were growing among the 

 cacti and palms, and a crust of Arctic cryptogamous 

 growth covered rocks, between which sprang tropical flow- 

 ers. On the northern flank of this Serra I found the 

 only genuine erratic boulders I have seen in the whole 

 length of the Amazonian Valley from Para to the frontier 

 of Peru, though there are many detached masses of rock, 

 as, for instance, at Pedreira, near the junction of the Rio 

 Negro and Rio Branco, which might be mistaken for 

 them, but are due to the decomposition of the rocks in 

 place. The boulders of Erere* are entirely distinct from the 

 rock of the Serra, and consist of masses of compact horn- 

 blende. 



It would seem that these two ranges skirting a part of 

 the northern and southern banks of the Lower Amazons are 

 not the only remnants of this arenaceous formation in its 



