18i 



MAZUNIA AND LA PLATA. 



the floods, with the Parahyba ; eastwards, with the chain of backwaters on both 

 sides of Cape S. Thome ; south-westwards, a channel, or rather, a broad ditch, 

 traversing several other lagoons, carries to the Macahe the overflow of the Lagua 

 Feia. 



West of the Archipelagoes and peninsular headlands terminating at Cape Frio, 

 several sheets of vv^ater follow along the low-lying tract comprised between the sea 

 and the foot of the Serra do Mar. Araruaraa, largest of these basins, maintains 

 constant communication with the ocean through a passage north of Cape Frio 

 giving free access to the tides. But the other lagoons are closed, and after long 



Fig. 76.— Cape Feio. 

 Scale 1 : 950,000. 



West or Greenwich 



Oto 10 

 Fathoms. 



Depths. 



10 to 25 

 Fathoms. 



2f) to 50 

 Fathoms. 



50 Fathoms 

 and upwards. 



18 Miles. 



periods of rain they have to be opened by cuttings in the intervening sandy 

 cordons. These lagoons might be easily transformed to productive salines, and 

 they were often used as such even under the Portuguese rule, although in 

 order to protect the monopoly of the Setubal salines, the extraction of salt was 

 forbidden by the royal edicts of 1690 and 1691. 



The marvellous bay of Rio de Janeiro, " River of January," which has given 

 its Portuguese name to the Brazilian capital, and which was formerly much more 

 aptly named Nictheroy, " Hidden Water," by the surrounding Tupi Indians, 

 belongs in its northern extremity to the type of the coast lagoons. It is, in fact, 



