218 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
Filippe Francisco Pereira. Roteiro da costa do Norte do Brazil. Per- 
nambuco, 1877. 
This work, written for the use of coast pilots and sailing masters, 
speaks incidentally of many of the reefs of northern Brazil. Opposite 
page 36 is a map of the Barra de Goianna, Pernambuco, showing the posi- 
tion of a reef somewhat broken and curved. 
He says (p. 43) there are reefs about the mouth of Rio Guajü, on 
the line between Parahyba and Rio Grande do Norte. The Barra do 
Cunhahú, Rio Grande do Norte, is also circled by reefs lying near the 
shore (p. 45). Others are mentioned (p. 50) at the mouth of Rio 
Ceará-Merim. Off Cape St. Roque he says the reefs are about 6 miles 
out and parallel with the coast, and extend 27 miles N.N.W. to Olhos 
d’Agua. These last are probably coral reefs, however. 
Piso, Gulielmus. De Indie Utriusque Re Naturali et Medica. Am- 
sterdam, 1658. 
Piso lived at Pernambuco during the Dutch occupancy under Maurice 
of Nassau, 1637-1644. 
Speaking of Pernambuco, this author says that the tide “ strikes with 
great violence against a reef or bank called by the Portuguese Recifo. 
All who have seen this reef are obliged to confess that it was placed 
there by a great kindness of nature. The ledge of rock, extending в 
long distance, opposes itself like a wall to the violence of the surf and 
mad elements, and gives ships safe stations and ports. It also supplies 
most abundant materials for buildings, and for the churches and monas- 
teries which are the pride of Olinda and Parahyba. This same reef, 
sometimes broken and crooked, again continuous and straight, protects 
the greatest part of Brazil. (Maximam Brasili® partem eadem, типе 
interrupto $ Легиово, nunc continuato rectoque dictu tuetur.) Its breadth 
(it is very flat, and as smooth as if artificially polished) is twenty, some- 
times thirty pacesand more. Its height is such that it is rarely covered 
by the highest tide” (р. 6-7). 
I have given this quotation at length, partly because it has been sup- 
posed that Piso is the original authority for the occasional statement 
that the reefs of Brazil are continuous. 
The same description is quoted on pages 584—585 of Caspar Barlaeus’s 
Rerum per Octennium in Brasilia. 2d ed. Clivis, 1660. 
In Piso’s Medicina Brasiliense, published in 1648 (pp. 3-4), the same 
account is given of the reef. 
