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.^ Barao 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 

 Pao 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. 



2 Geological Observations, ed. 2, p. 210-211. 



3 Geological Observations, p. 193. 



« Mittheilungen aug Justus Perthes' Geogr. Anstalt von Dr. Petermann 1874 

 p. 230. 



s Ch. F. Ilartt. Geology and physical geography of Brazil, p. 35. 71-73. 



« H. II. Smith. Do Rio de Janeiro a Cuyaba. Notas de um Xaturalista. p 

 10-11. Rio, 1887. ^ 



VOL. xuv. 3 



