116 bulletin: MUSEmi of comparative zoology. 



Much has been said as to the origin of the treeless condition of this 

 region. About Ponta Grossa in Parana the persistence of the elements 

 of the forest along the brooks and rivulets and near the water courses 

 would seem to point to the oft repeated supposition of a diminished 

 rainfall following the glacial period as the probable cause. In my 

 notes on the surface deposits I have presented some reason for thinking 

 that traces of such a change in the rainfall and run-off are observable. 



In Parana and Santa Catharina farming and cattle raising find 

 suitable conditions and here the influx of European settlers from 

 Germany, Poland, and in Rio Grande do Sul from Italy, has under the 

 more temperate climate of the upland wrought commensurate changes 

 in the appearance of the country. 



Mention has already been made of the harborage to lingering 

 remnants of hostile natives which the Triassic trap escarpment affords. 

 Farther in the interior larger bodies of aborigines favored by the 

 unnavigable rivers made inaccessible from their lower courses by 

 reason of the numerous falls over the trap sheets maintain to a large 

 degree the primitive state of the Brazilian highland. 



VIII. NOTE ON THE CHANGES OF LEVEL OF THE COAST 



OF SOUTHERN CHILE. 



For more than seventy years Darwin's raised beaches and terraces 

 of the west coast of South America have been generally regarded by 

 English-speaking geologists as typical examples of a relative change 

 of level of land and sea. Sir Charles Lyell by embodying the observa- 

 tions and conclusions of Darwin in his classic Principles of geology 

 gave wide distribution to the views of Darwin concerning the magnitude 

 and extent of the supposed recent elevation of the west coast of South 

 America. A dissent from the views of the justly celebrated naturalist 

 of the "Beagle" was scarcely heard in geological circles until in 1885, 

 when Edouard Suess brought out Das Antlitz der Erde, in which work 

 he sought to show by testimony mainly that of observers of the 

 Chilean coast since Darwin's voyage, that no noteworthy elevation of 

 this coast in recent times had taken place. Upon the publication of 

 the French translation of Suess's great work, La Face de la Terre, the 

 writer (J. B. Woodworth, 1898, p. 803-806) in a review expressed a 

 disbelief in the sufficiency of the evidence brought against Darwin's 

 observations and conclusions. In fact, I went to Chile rather for the 

 purpose of studying the nature of the movements, whether by frac- 



