ceara. 463 



by to Cear& without acknowledging the sympathy shown by 

 the President of the Province, Senhor Homem de Mello, in 

 the objects of the expedition. Mr. Agassiz has received a col- 

 lection of palms and fishes, the directions for which he had 

 given before starting for the Serra, but the expenses of 

 which are defrayed by the President, who insists upon their 

 being received as a contribution from the province. Mr. 

 Agassiz is also greatly indebted to Senhor Felice, at whose 

 house we have lodged,' for efficient help in collecting, and to 

 Senhor Cicero de Lima for a collection of fishes and insects 

 from the interior. I conclude this chapter with a few pas- 

 sages from notes made by Mr. Agassiz during his examina- 

 tion of the Serra of Aratanha and the site of Pacatuba. 



" I spent the rest of the day in a special examination of 

 the right lateral moraine, and part of the front moraine of 

 the glacier of Pacatuba ; my object was especially to ascer- 

 tain whether what appeared a moraine at first might not, 

 after all, be a spur of the serra, decomposed in place. I as- 

 cended the ridge to its very origin, and there crossed into an 

 adjoining depression, immediately below the Sitio of Captain 

 Henriquez, where I found another glacier bottom of smaller 

 dimensions, the ice of which probably never reached the 

 plain. Everywhere in the ridges encircling these depres- 

 sions the loose materials and large boulders are so accumu- 

 lated and embedded in clay or sand that their morainic 

 character is unmistakable. Occasionally, where a ledge 

 of the underlying rock crops out, in places where the drift 

 has been removed by denudation, the difference between the 

 moraine and the rock decomposed in place is recognized at 

 once. It is equally easy to distinguish the boulders which 

 here and there have rolled down from the mountain and 

 stopped against the moraine. The three things are side by 



