114 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPAKATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



and two thousand and ninety kilometres from the northernmost reef 

 at Ceara. 



Have tliere been changes toithin the historic period ? — Several writers 

 have expressed tlie opinion that the northeast coast of Brazil has been 

 elevated recently. It is not always clear whether they mean "recently" 

 in the historic or in the geologic sense. Capanema, however, speaks of 

 a recession of the sea at one place at the rate of " ten fathoms in thirty 

 years." ^ 



This must necessarily be taken to mean an elevation during the 

 present century. 



The point at which this particular elevation is said to have occurred 

 is Aquiraz in the State of Ceara, four leagues southeast of the city of 

 Ceara and half a league from the coast. It is off the ordinary routes of 

 travel, and as the writer has not visited the place and knows of no ac- 

 count of it by other observers, we can only judge it by what is known 

 of other places on this coast. 



Inasmuch as the sandstone reefs of northeast Brazil have attracted the 

 attention of navigators and travellers since the earliest times, and as 

 these reefs are of great importance to commerce, and inasmuch as any 

 elevation or depression of the coast would immediately produce notice- 

 able effects upon them, they afford an excellent means of judging 

 as to whether or not any sucli changes of level have taken place since 

 the discovery of Brazil. 



It was to have been expected that so remarkable a natural phenomenon 

 as the sandstone reefs of Brazil would arrest the attention of the eany 

 navigators. The oldest accounts we have of the reefs relate to those at 

 Porto Seguro and at Pernambuco. 



Pero Vaz de Caminha, one of the companions of Cabral, the discoverer 

 of Brazil, was the first to make mention of the reefs, — the one at Porto 

 Seguro, where Cabral landed in the year 1500. He merely mentions it, 

 however, as a "reef having a very good and secure port inside of it." ^ 



Pero Lopes de Souza was at Pernambuco in 1530; he mentions 

 the reef at that place, the one near Cabo Sto. Agostinho, and one at 



1 Trabalhos da Coramissao Scientifica. I. Introducjao, p. cxxxvii. Rio de 

 Janeiro, 1865. 



2 Carta de Pedro Vaas de Caminha a El Rei D. ManoeL Collecfao de noticias 

 para a historia e geografia das nacoes ultramarinas que vivem nos dominios Portu- 

 guezes. Tom. IV., No. III., p. 180 a. Lisboa, 1826. 



Corografia Brazilica de Manoel Ayres de Cazal. I., p. 12-34. Rio de Janeiro, 1817. 

 Re vista do Instituto Historico e Geographico do Brazil, 1877, XL., Pt. II., p. 13-37. 



