BRANNER: THE STONE REEFS OF BRAZIL. 113 
of nineteen hundred kilometres, that the elevation has been greater 
toward the south and west, and that it diminished northeastward. In 
southern Patagonia? the elevation is given as four hundred feet (one 
hundred and twenty-two metres) ; in the La Plata region it has been 
one hundred feet (thirty metres). Darwin, however, does not maintain 
that the elevation of the Cordillera and that of the La Plata provinces 
took place at the same time.” 
Although Darwin’s discussion refers chiefly to the La Plata region 
and to the country south and west of there, he mentions also evidences 
of the elevation of the coast of southern Brazil at Santos and near Cape 
Frio.® Barão de Capanema states that the city of Laguna in the State 
of Santa Catherina “stands upon a dark alluvial deposit densely packed 
with shells which have not been carried there, for I found oyster shells 
grown upon a granite cliff half a metre above the present level of the 
city and something more than two metres above the highest water-mark 
of the harbor.” * 
The evidences of the elevation of the coast near Rio de Janeiro con- 
sist of recent shells in sands now above tide, about the Bay of Rio; re- 
ported sea-urchin holes bored in the granite rocks at the base of the 
Pão d'Assucar and now above the reach of the tides ; similar holes at 
Villa Velha; and marine erosion lines beyond the reach of tide-water at 
Victoria.” Herbert Smith mentions? one place where recent shells are 
found four metres above high tide on the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. 
For the coast north of Espirito Santo but little evidence has been 
published showing changes of level. Some very general statements have 
been made and theories advanced, but the only specific evidence pub- 
lished on the subject consists of two papers by Richard Rathbun refer- 
ring to the elevated beach at Porto Santo in the Bay of Bahia. 
This leaves a long coast-line of whose vertical movements, little or 
nothing is known. And it should be remembered that Victoria, where 
the evidences of changes are satisfactory, is four hundred and forty 
kilometres from the stone reef at Porto Seguro, the southernmost of 
the stone reefs, fourteen hundred and fifty kilometres from Pernambuco, 
1 Darwin's Geological Observations, p. 218. 
? Geological Observations, ed. 2, p. 210-211. 
3 Geological Observations, p. 193. 
* Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geogr. Anstalt von Dr. Petermann, 1874, 
p. 230. 
5 Ch. F. Hartt. Geology and physical geography of Brazil, p. 35, 71-73. 
5 H, H. Smith. Do Rio de Janeiro a Cuyabá. Notas de um Naturalista, p. 
10-11. Rio, 1887. 
VOL. XLIV. 8 
