EIO AND IIS ENVIEONS. 



19i 



the Natural History Museum, the Public Library with 200,000 volumes, the 

 Historico-Geographical Institute, and the Geographical Society, both with valu- 

 able special libraries. The observatory, at present rising above tbe picturesque 

 ruins of an old Jesuit Church, is to be removed to a peak of the Serra do Mar 

 near Petropolis, 3,450 feet above sea-level. 



Besides the botanic garden, with a domain of no less than 1,500 acres, of 

 which, however, not more than 150 are laid out, there are several other public 

 grounds, all displaying the great variety and splendour of the Brazilian vegeta- 

 tion. Such are the Passeio Publico, on the seashore, the Largo do Constituçao, near 

 which are grouped the chief theatres, and the Largo do Republica, between the 



Fig. 81. — Rio, NiCTHEEOY AND ENVIRONMENTS. 

 Scale 1 : 180,000. 





a '-■^ 



West oF bre 



43°iO 



reptbb 



to 5 

 Fathoms. 



old town and the new quarters stretching westwards. On the beach near the 

 botanic garden it is proposed to lay out a fashionable watering-place under the 

 name of Gar in, with a seaward frontage of nearly three miles. 



Besides its public grounds, the Brazilian capital offers to sightseers many ad- 

 mirable prospects from the numerous eminences that spring from the very heart 

 of the city like the islands from the waters of the bay. Rio is not like Rome or 

 Byzantium, a " city of seven hills." In fact the heights are not easily enume- 

 rated, for certain rising-grounds may be regarded as isolated knolls or as simple 

 headlands, while others, attacked by the quarrymen, are in process of disappearing. 

 These quarries of red or grey granite interspersed with black grains, supply an 

 excellent building material for the public monuments. More than half of the 



