BRANNEU: THE STONE EEEFS OF BRAZIL. 95 



or more at low tide aloug this side of the reef. In most cases corals 

 grow on the faces of these reefs below low water." 



The stone reef at Santa Cruz. — Santa Cruz, in the State of Bahia, 

 is a small town about two hundred and seventy kilometres south of the 

 city of Bahia. It stands at the mouth and on the south side of the Rio 

 da Santa Cruz, which river enters the Bahia de Cabral from behind and 

 around the north end of a stone reef. 



The general topography of the region about Santa Cruz is worthy of 

 special note. There is a striking resemblance between it and the topog- 

 raphy of Porto Seguro. 



The flat-topped hills with an elevation of about fifty metres here come 

 down to the shores. The plateau is cut across at this place by the 

 Santa Cruz river. The valley, however, instead of being v-shaped, is 

 steep only at the widely separated margins, while the floor of the valley 

 is broad and flat. The hills at the town of Santa Cruz and on which 

 the church stands are so steep on the northwest side that they are nearly 

 perpendicular at several places. Low mangrove swamps are visible about 

 the mouth of the river and follow up this stream for many kilometres, 

 but it is to be noted that there is both near the mouth of the stream and 

 further up the valley much land standing at an elevation of about three 

 metres above tide. This is flat land, however. The reef extends right 

 across the mouth of this valley, but stands a little way out from the hills. 

 The river strikes the reef near its southern end, bends northward, and 

 enters the sea around the north end of the reef. The south end of the 

 reef laps back against the beach opposite the town. At its north end 

 it is double, and as it breaks down isolated rocks continue for a few 

 hundred metres beyond the end of the solid rock. At low tide this reef 

 appears to stand about two metres out of water. 



To the landward of the reef is a long line of mangrove swamps, so that 

 unlike most of such reefs this one is not much undercut by the river that 

 flows from behind it. It has a large break at one point. 



I saw but little of the Santa Ci'uz reef and therefore give Hartt's de- 

 scription of it.^ He says that it begins " on the shore just to the south 

 of the village, continues in the trend of the beach, which is north a few 

 degrees east, with an occasional break for a distance of about two miles, 

 the river flowing behind it and escaping around its northern extremity. 

 At low water the breakers show that the reef is continued under water 

 with the same general trend northward, tying in with a reef which, be- 

 ginning at a point about a mile north of the river-mouth, fringes the 



^ Geology and physical geography of Brazil, p. 232-2.34. 



