seg) es 
pensate largely for possible deficiencies in navigable rivers, and coal 
deposits, in populous communities, since Brazil has enough water 
power to operate all her present railways and factories with the electric 
current, and leave an enormous surplus for any future develop- 
ments. The recent utilization of water-falls on the Rio Tieté for 
light and power in the city of S. Paulo, and also of the falls of 
Ribeiraéo das Lages to furnish light and power for the large city of Rio 
de Janairo, is only the heginning of the development of the enor- 
mous electric possibilities afforded by the great cascades and rapids 
of South Brasilian rivers. 
No Recent Glaciation in South Brazil 
No evidence whatever of glacial action during the Pleistocene 
epoch could be found in any of the regions of Brazil visited by 
the writer. The great rounded boulders of granite, gneiss and 
olher crystalline rocks which often appear on the surface, and 
which to Agassiz, and Hartt, seemed to be wood evidence of former 
glacial conditions, are in most cases simply « boulders of disinte- 
gration ». Likewise, the mantle of red soil that covers so much 
of the surface is due to the same agencies of disintegration which 
are ever active in tropical countries with large rainfall. Not a single 
striated surface or scratched boulder was found in anv of the areas 
around Rio regarded as typical of glaciated conditions by the elder 
Agassiz and Hartt. 
Ancient Glaciation 
While no satisfactory evidence of recent glaciation could be 
found in South Brazil, there appears to be a body of facts that 
cannot be accounted for except upon the hypothesis of glacial 
conditions at the dawn of Permian time over a very large area in 
South Brazil, since at many points there orcur immense boulders 
of granite, gneiss, quartzite, and other rocks underlying the Coal 
Measures, and often imbedded in a fine gray argillaceous paste 
apparently without stratification. 
In the State of Santa Catharina on the road between Joinville 
and Rio Negro, the surface af the ground is frequently covered with 
immense numbers of these transported boulders, some of which are 
3x32 meters in size, and clearly imbedded in the clay rocks 
* 
