54 J. C. BKANNER — GEOLOGY OF NORTHEAST COAST OF BRAZIL 



The railway cuts east of Santa Rita are in Cretaceous (or Tertiary) 

 sediments, some of them false-bedded. At Santa Rita the railway sta- 

 tion is 6 meters above the flat valley floor and 9 above tide-level. From 

 Santa Rita to Reis the railway cuts expose only soil and sedimentary 

 beds. 



Between Reis and Espirito Santo the line of the railway crosses a 

 series of short finger-like hills which project toward and into the marshes 

 of the Parahyba valley from the high country south of it. Fresh-water 

 marshes extend from near the station of Espirito Santo eastward for 

 about 1 kilometer. This station is on a flat plain 4 or 5 meters above 

 the level of the water in the fresh-water marshes. The railway here 

 skirts the foot of the sedimentary plain which extends southward from 

 the Parahyba river. 



The Cretaceous (or Tertiary) beds end on the railway line between 

 Espirito Santo and Entroncamento, and the first crystalline rocks appear 

 shortly before the latter station is reached. At Entroncamento, 31 kilo- 

 meters from the city of Parar^ba, freshwater marshes of the Parahiba are 

 about 7 meters above tidelevel. The immediate valley of the Parahyba 

 is less than 1 kilometer wide where crossed by the railway, and is flat, 

 ending against rounded and gently sloping hills. 



' Following up the main line north of Entroncamento there is a railway 

 cut exposing schists with quartz veins about 200 meters south of Cobe 

 station. One kilometer north of Cobe is another cut in quartz- veined 

 schists. One and a half kilometers beyond and north of Cobe, and at 

 an elevation of 58 meters above tide, waterworn pebbles, some of them 

 as large as one's fist, are exposed along the railway at a depth of from 1 

 to 2 meters below the surface of the red soil and following the surface 

 contour of the hills. In some places, however, these pebbles are wanting. 



The station of Sape is on the flat plateau-like divide between the Para- 

 hiba and Mamanguape rivers ; its elevation is 94.5 meters above tide. 

 Looking southward from Sape one may see that the floor of the Para- 

 hyba valley is remarkably flat and even, while the skyline beyond is 

 much broken. For 20 kilometers the railway follows the flat plateau ; 

 this same taboleiro extends eastward nearly to the sea, forming the 

 tablelands between the Parahyba and the Rio Mamanguape. There 

 are but few exposures along the railway where it crosses this flat plateau, 

 so that the geology is not well shown. So far as it is visible, it seems to 

 be a plain of crystalline rocks cut off rather evenly and having a thin 

 coating of sedimentary beds spread over it. At the margins of the plain 

 the cuts expose crystalline rocks overlain with waterworn boulders- 

 About 2 kilometers west of Araca the railway descends from the plateau 

 of particolored sediments into the Mamanguape valley. At an eleva- 



