BKANNER: the stone PvEEfS OF BRAZIL. 



135 



suggests the cutting of this neck just south of Fort Brum.'' But this 

 neck has been cut through on more than one occasion, and the breach 

 has been closed by the sea in spite of the fact that the break greatly 

 shortens the course of the BeberiVje to the sea. 



In the Institute Archeologico e Geographico of Pemambuco is an 

 interesting old water-color of the city said to have been made between 

 1822 and 1844. Tliis picture shows a break in this peninsula between 

 Fort Brum and Recife. Several persons who have lived for many vears 

 at Pernambuco have assured me of such breaks having been made from 

 time to time by the sea and afterwards filled up by the same agency. 



On a trip down the coast from Pernambuco to Maceio, made in July, 

 1899, I observed several instances of sandy necks cut through by the 

 streams behind them and immediately afterwards repaired by the sea. 



At Ilhetas Point (S. lat. 8° 45' 30") 

 a small stream, Rio Ilhetas, ap- 

 proaches the coast at right angles, 

 but instead of entering the sea at 

 once it swings northward, unites with 

 another stream, and entei's the ocean 

 a kilometre or two away, under the 

 protection of a wide sand-bar. At 

 the^time of my visit, near the end of 

 the rainy season, the river at an ebb- 

 ing tide had broken through the nar- 

 row neck of sand that pi'evented its 

 direct entrance to the sea, and cut a 

 gap as wide as the river and more 

 than two metres deep. But instead 

 of the river being able to keep this 

 new mouth open, the very next in- 

 coming tide not only threw the sand 



back into the opening but piled through on top of it a great cone that 

 the river was now compelled to cut out of its original channel. On the 

 whole, there was a decided loss for the stream. 



Again, where Rio Una approaches the sea near Varzea (S. lat. 8° 49'), 

 a similar break was made by a larger stream. The opening was about 

 two kilometres north of the mouth of the river, was 2.3 metres deep, and 

 forty metres wide. The stream opposite the opening is one hundred 

 metres w-ide and has a strong current. With an outgoing tide during 



^ M. de Barros Barreto. Projecto de doca no porto de Pernambuco. 1865. 



Fig. 72. 



Breached sand neck, Rio 

 Illietas. 



