232 



AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Scale 1 : 540,000. 



Desterro, standing on the nearest point of the west coast to the mainland, made 

 steady progress from decade to decade, without acquiring the importance that 

 might be expected from its well-sheltered harbour, accessible from the north to 

 vessels drawing 12 or 14 feet. But the bar at the southern entrance of the strait, 

 here 1,150 feet wide, has only five feet of water on the sill. On the mainland 



the most frequented ports are 

 Fig. 101. -Santa Catharina Island. Biguassu, near the mouth of the 



Rio Biguassu, and S. Joué, on a 

 creek nearly opposite Desterro. 

 The soil of the island, formerly 

 covered with highly j)roductive 

 coffee plantations, is exhausted, 

 and the hills are now overgrown 

 with scrub. 



In recent years the plains 

 watered by the Rio Tubarao have 

 acquired some importance, thanks 

 to the coal that has been dis- 

 covered on the slopes of the Serra 

 Geral. Though greatly inferior 

 to English coal, the beds lie near 

 the surface, and are consequently 

 easily worked. A railway ^'6 

 miles long has been constructed 

 for the transport of the mineral, 

 of which at least 50,000,000 tons 

 are found in the district already 

 surveyed. The line traverses 

 the Tubarao valle}', and is carried 

 over a coast lagoon at Larangciras 

 by a viaduct 1,565 yards long, 

 the most important work of the 

 kind in South America. Beyond 

 the viaduct the line ramiHes 

 northwards to the port of Im- 

 bituba, southwards to that of La- 

 g/fua, at the extremity of a sandy 

 peninsula limited on the east by 

 a shallow lagoon. Both ports 

 are of difficult access, and Imbituba, though better sheltered and deeper, is 

 threatened by the dunes moving north under the action of the winds. Owing 

 to the disturbance caused by two different tidal waves, the ebb and flow is ex- 

 tremely irregular at Laguna. The rise at high water is scarcely more than three 

 feet ; it seems to depend mainly on the direction of the winds, and it frequently 



otoie 



Feet. 



Depths. 



16 to 32 

 Feet. 



32 Feet 

 and upwards. 



12 Miles. 



