SANTOS 21 



then a parkway, and a road for trolleys and heavy traffic, 

 extends seven or eight miles along the water front, passes 

 through a tunnel under the mountain and continues eight 

 or ten miles farther along the ocean beach, the finest 

 drive I ever saw. 



We had to wait four days at Rio Janeiro for a connection 

 with the Royal mail boat which should take us the rest of 

 the way to Buenos Aires. This gave us an opportunity to 

 ramble over the city leisurely, to enjoy its active street 

 life, and see a little of its amusement places. On one of 

 these days we went up to the top of the Corcovada, from 

 which eminence one gets a view over all the city and the 

 surrounding country. This part of Brazil is a broad plateau 

 about three thousand feet above sea level, the rock being 

 composed of rather soft, layered gneisses, into which 

 have been thrust from below numerous rounded bosses of 

 much harder granite. Near the sea the gneisses have been 

 cut away by the action of the rains and the waves, leaving 

 the rounded masses of granite standing up above the adja- 

 cent country like the buttons in a mushroom bed. The 

 country is further complicated by a series of faults which 

 frequently cut off a side of one of the egg-shaped knobs. 

 We had the good fortune to see the models which Mr. 

 Derby has prepared for the Brazilian national museum and 

 to meet this pioneer geologist, who is laying the founda- 

 tions of the survey of that country. Most of this work is 

 being done by North Americans, but as yet the great ex- 

 tent of the country has hardly been scratched. 



The city is supposed to have about 800,000 inhabitants, 

 but no actual count has yet been made, as the people 

 object to a census; so the population is estimated by 

 figuring back from the death rate. 



Finally the Royal mail boat, Ashirias, came in and we 

 were all transferred to it, sailing away almost at once. 

 Two nights and a day brought us to Santos, the port of 

 San Paulo, the coffee port of the world, three fourths of 



