80 Mr Gardner's Geological Notes on the Interior 



ascent is far from being good, it being left entirely in the hands 

 of nature. The only rock I observed was sandstone, similar 

 to that which exists at Crato. The breadth of the Serra here 

 is nearly eight leagues, and during the whole of this distance 

 the road is as level as a bowling-green ; and, as no water is to 

 be found on it, travellers are obliged to supply themselves with 

 it before ascending. For small parties it is carried in cala- 

 bashes, but when many pass together a horse is provided to 

 carry two large leather bagfuls. These Taboleiras are gene- 

 rally thinly wooded, with small trees, the principal of which 

 are a species of Caryocar called Pike, a small tree belonging 

 to the natural order Apocyniacea?, which produces a delicious 

 fruit called Mangaba, a fine species of Brysonema, the Cashew 

 {Anacardium occidentale), a purple-flowered Qualea, and seve- 

 ral small leguminous trees belonging to the division Rectem- 

 briee. 



The Villa do Barra do Jardim stands in a small valley, up- 

 wards of a league in length, and in its broadest part about half 

 a league in breadth. It is bounded to the north and east by 

 the branch of the Serra which I crossed over, and to the west 

 by another, but neither so broad nor so long. Having made 

 inquiries for the place where the fossil fishes were to be found, 

 I was directed to a rising ground which extends along the foot 

 of the Serra. On my arrival at an open place of this gently 

 sloping ridge to the north of the villa, I found the ground 

 covered with great abundance of stones of various sizes, and I 

 was informed that almost every one of them, on being broken, 

 presented some part or other of a fish. These fragments I soon 

 found to consist of compact fawn-coloured limestone. They 

 are of all sizes, from pieces not larger than an egg to blocks of 

 several feet in circumference, and are almost all rounded and 

 smoothly polished, having apparently been for a long time 

 under the influence of a current of water.* They in general 



* This is hardly borne out by the appearance of the specimens, which are 

 certainly not rolled pebbles, but nodules of impure limestone, nearly of the 

 form of the imbedded fish, and apparently aggregated round it by chemical 

 attraction from the sandstone while in a soft state. The fact stated by Mi- 

 Gardner, that he nowhere found limestone in situ in the neighbourhood of 

 Barra do Jardim, and that the fossiliferous nodules are not mixed with, 



