78 J. C. BRAXxNER — GEOLOGY OF NORTHEAST COAST OF BRAZIL 



lain by a bed, about half a meter in thickness, of coarse, waterworn 

 quartz gravels, with from 1 to 2 meters of soil above it. 



From this point westward the cuts expose no more Tertiary beds. 

 Before reaching Jaboatao there are many exposures of decomposed gneiss 

 or granite, in which are hard unaffected cores or boulders of decomposi- 

 tion. One of the largest of these cuts is about 3 kilometers east of 

 Jaboatao. East of the cut there are exposures of granite in the valle}'. 

 One kilometer east of Jaboatao there is a cut 12 meters deep. This 

 exposes red residuary soil with large blocks of undecomposed gneiss 

 scattered through it. Immediately east of Jaboatao station is a cut about 

 10 meters deep in a decayed gneissoid rock. At this station there are 

 many exposures of crystalline rocks in the bed of the Rio Jaboatao. A 

 little more than half a kilometer west of the station is a cat 10 meters 

 deep. Very few of these cuts expose solid rock even at the bottom ; 

 but most of them still have some boulders of the unaltered rock left 

 behind. 



Three or 4 kilometers west of Jaboatao the railway cuts expose 

 beds of subangular gravels 0.2 meter or 0.3 meter thick. These cuts, 

 however, are not in the crests of the ridges, but more than halfway 

 down their slopes. It seems probable that the gravels are left by the 

 streams cutting their way downward, and that they do not belong to 

 the Tertiary gravel sheets. 



About 1 kilometer east of Morenos station (kilometer 27) there is a 

 cut 10 meters deep, and several others not so deep, in red residuary 

 earth. At Morenos station the Rio Jaboatao flows over and. between 

 blocks of granite. Five kilometers west of Morenos small fluted bosses 

 of gneiss are exposed in the fields. 



Between Morenos (kilometer 27) and Tapera (kilometer 38) there are 

 several cuts 10 meters deep. In some of them the rocks are decom- 

 posed down to the level of the railway track, while in others there remain 

 here and there undecomposed lumps of the original crystalline rock. 



Where the cuts expose the rock decayed in place along this portion of 

 the line the residual clays are red, yellow, brown, and mottled, but red 

 is the predominating color. 



Three or 4 kilometers west of Tapera the first bedded or foliated rocks 

 were seen. East of the watershed between Tapera (kilometer 38) and 

 Victoria (kilometer 51) these rocks look like gneiss, with a general east- 

 west strike. West of the watershed and to within 3 kilometers of Vic- 

 toria station the rocks are schists and shales standing at high angles (60 

 to 80 degrees). East of Victoria for about 3 kilometers the rocks are 

 more like granites. Immediately east of Victoria station is a cut about 

 8 meters deep. The bottom of the cut is in decomposed crystalline rocks 



