388 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
We reached Pedra, about 25 kilometers from the falls, just before 
sunset. There is a thread factory here, with light and power trans- 
mitted by a turbine station at the falls, both the property of the 
Gouveia family. Permission was secured from the factory manager 
to visit the falls, and a little after dark we set out. As we sped 
along, the headlights showing cactus and the pale gray stems of 
leafless shrubs, I waited breathlessly for the plunge into tropical 
forest. Finally we saw lights ahead and were met by a little crowd 
of men and boys. (The factory manager had telephoned that we 
were coming.) The automobile could go no farther; they would 
take us and our baggage on a tiny trolley on a narrow track. A 
man ran behind and pushed the car. The new moon had set but 
there was enough starlight to see that we were crossing deep places. 
We could hear the roar of the falls and, alighting after a ride of 
about half a kilometer on the trolley, we could see a wild turmoil of 
tossing waters. We clambered about a little to get a starlight view 
of the falls while Antonio, who had pushed the trolley car and who 
was our devoted friend till we left, hung our hammocks in an empty 
house and carried in our baggage. How could there be such mighty 
falls and such spray without verdure? Morning would reveal some 
dripping cliffs, I was sure, with trees and the climbing bamboos and 
tropical grasses I had been looking forward to.” But at early dawn 
I left my hammock to view the greatest waterfall and the most 
lifeless desert I have ever seen. 
At this time, early in the dry season, the falls were about 81 meters 
high. (Niagara is about 49 meters high.) In the rainy season in 
this region (June and July), and again in the rainy season at the 
headwaters of Rio Sao Francisco in Minas Geraes (December to 
February) the river is much higher, sometimes 15 meters or more 
above its present level below the falls. The Paulo Affonso is not 
one straight fall, as is Niagara, but is, rather, a stupendous cascade. 
The power plant and a few small houses are on an island cut off 
from the mainland by two rocky channels, one of which was dry at 
this season. These channels are bridged by a trolley line about two 
and one-half feet wide, with planks down the middle for crossing on 
foot. At the falls a high island of dark rock (Secret Island) divides 
the river, the main falls being the left branch (looking down stream). 
The right branch (on the Bahia side of the island) can not be seen 
from the left bank. At the top of the main falls the river is divided 
by a great mass of rock, forming two falls which pour toward each 
other. Below this the waters pour in three divisions into a great 
plunge basin, into which also pour the waters of a lovely twin falls 
and, a short distance farther, of the great Bahia Falls, which sub- 
divide Secret Island. At the base of the Bahia Falls all the waters 
come together in the wildest turmoil, creamy brown, and explode 
