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still continue on north-eastward forming the hold cliffs in Serra da 
Esperanca and other mountains on into the state of S& Paulo. 
The lofty peak called Funil, which rises in a great cone from 
the general level of the Serva General near the road leading from 
Lages to Blumenan in Santa Catharina, rests upon a platform of 
these hard strata, while the picturesque region around Lages, and 
from there to and beyond Bom Retiro on the road to Florianopolis, 
is due to the same outcropping cliffs. 
From the region of Minas, in Santa Catharina, all along the front 
of the Serra Geral to Santa Maria and beyond in Rio Grande do Sul, 
these great sandstone escarpments are almost constantly in sight, 
while the isolated peaks of Morro Sapucaia, near S. Leopoldo, Tres 
Irmaéos, near Margem do Taquary, Morro do Botucarahy near Cacho- 
eira, and Morros Pellado, Carpenteria, etc., along Rio Ibicuhy, west 
from Cacequy are crowned by these sandstones. The isolated peaks 
of Barabé, Itapecy, and others, so conspicuous in the landscape 
between Cacequy and Alegrete, are simply remnants of this great 
formation left by the general erosion and preserved at an altitude 
of: 400 to 500 meters above the plains. 
In the'railway cuts along the Santa Maria & Uruguay railway, 
some fine exposures of the sandstones may he observed. The higher 
portions of the beds which appear to end at about 300 meters above 
lhe level of Santa Maria, are frequently ruptured and great lenses of 
the sandstone in a semi-vilrified condition are completely enclosed by 
sheets of diabase, while above the 300 meters elevation eruptive beds 
extend onto the summits of the mountain completely covering up 
the sandstones. Where the beds are nearly pure sand, vitrification 
of the portions in near contact with eruptives is much more complete 
than when the sandstones contain aluminous material. 
It is quile probable that the Sdo Bento series has frequently trans- 
gressed the limits of the underlying Carboniferous rocks, lapping 
over them eastwards as well as westwards, since at Rifaina in northern 
S. Paulo, 200 to 250 meters of these sandstones rest directly upon the 
old crystalline gneisses and quartzites. 
Also on the Atlantic coast at Torres, near the line between Santa 
Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul, the red beds of the rio do Rasto group 
occur a few feet above tide level, directly beneath a great sheet of 
diabase much of which is amygdaloidal. The waves have excavated 
the red sandy beds into fantastic caverns, since they are much softer 
