There are many dressed and half-dressed building 
stones buried in the beach sands about the southern 
end of this reef. These stones are supposed to have 
been left here by the Dutch, as no one seems to know 
when they were taken out. It used to be supposed 
that the reef rock used at Pernambuco and Olinda 
for architectural purposes all came from the Pernam- 
buco reef. It appears, however, that the Gaibú reef 
was the source from which some, perhaps most, of 
this stone came. This reef protects no harbor, and, 
being close to Pernambuco, and in a bay where boats 
could readily be loaded, it offered a convenient source 
of supply of these excellent building stones without 
trespassing on the Pernambuco reef, which had 
value as a protection to the port. 
The stone reef south of Cabo Santo Agostinho, — 
The finest stone reef on the coast of Brazil is the one 
lying immediately south of Cabo Santo Agostinho in 
the State of Pernambuco. No steamers enter the 
port behind this reef and no highways cross the hills 
of the Cape above it ; being thus of but little com- 
mercial importance, the reef 18 only slightly or not 
at all known. Recent charts represent it in a con- 
ventional fashion. The best map I have seen of it 
is that of Lichthart, the Dutch cartographer, made 
more than three hundred years ago, and the only 
views of it hitherto published are the woodcuts given 
in Liais' L’ Espace Céleste (pp. 543, 546). 
As in other cases, we are concerned to a certain 
extent with the physical features of the country on 
the land side of the reef. In this instance these 
features are so broad that their relations to the his- 
tory of the reef are not so clear as they are in the 
cases of several of the small reefs with 
history, but with a more com 
The features of the region 
best from the high hills on t 
cape. The view is superb. To the left the long 
straight reef stretches away to the south, a vanish- 
ing line. Behind this is the bay with one straight 
side against the reef, while the other curves in and 
out to meet the three streams, — the Merepe, the 
Ipojäca, the Tatuöca, and the Suäpe, that enter it 
from the flat lands on the west. Here and there 
through this flat region one gets a glimpse of the 
shining waters of these streams, but for the most part 
they are hidden by the forests that cover the valley, 
greater 
a similar 
pact topography. 
as a whole can be seen 
he southern side of the 
STONE REEF 
CABO STO-AGOSTINHO, 
C E.GLMAN, 
