Fi rnando d( N'oronha, 258 



It should also be noted, however, that some of these sand- 

 stone beds, rest immediately upon beach-worn pebbles and 



cobble-stones. In the ease of the great block o{' sandstone, 

 about 26 feet high, which is the remnant of an island near Sao 

 Jos6, known as the Ohapeo, the underlying conglomerate ifl 



extremely hard and is well exposed at low tide. On the south- 

 east Bide of Ilha Rapta and on Ilha Uaxa they can he seen, 

 though not so well exposed as at the Chapeo. Inasmuch as 

 the cobbles must have been worn before they were covered by 

 sand, the island must have stood at a level somewhat lower 

 than its present ore while the cobbles were being made, and 

 as the wind bedding could not be produced below the surface 

 of the water or in sand to which the waves had access, the 

 island must have been elevated somewhat before the dunes 

 wore blown over and deposited upon the cobble-covered 

 beach t 



It is worthy of note that all these aeolian sandstones lie upon 

 the eastern or southeastern sides of the island, that they occur 

 at a pretty high elevation, (70 feet on Ilha do Meio, 90 feet 

 on Sao Jose and about 100 on Ilha Rapta and at the base of 

 Atalaia Grande) and that they are entirely disconnected with 

 anv of the small existing sand beaches. The former beaches 

 must have been much more extensive than any now about 

 these islands, for there is nowliere upon these shores a beach 

 comparable in extent, size or thickness with the exposed 

 beds of these calcareous sandstones, and the sea-bottom is 

 everywhere rough and more or less rocky, a fact whjch pre- 

 cludes the idea of these beds having once existed as sediments 

 or as immediate beaches I have already expressed the con- 

 viction,* that these sands were blown up from the south or 

 southeast, a conviction sustained both " by the geographic posi- 

 tions of the various beds, by the absence of such rocks at cor- 

 responding elevations on the opposite sides of the islands, and 

 by the internal structure of the rocks themselves, the steeper 

 face being toward the north or the northwest. But as there 

 is now no beach from wdiich this sand could have been 

 derived,*)" we must conclude that the island was, not long ago, 

 wider to the southeast, and that there were upon that side of 

 it sandy shores, upon which a great abundance of organic 

 remains was thrown and ground to sand. These sands were 

 then blown across the island to and upon the opposite shore, 

 burying the former bowlder-covered beach near Sao Jose* 

 beneath 75 to 100 feet of sand, and piling it up considerably 

 higher than the highest parts of the existing sand-rock." They 

 joined into one what are now the separate islands of Sao Jose, 



* Ibid., p. 161. 



f There are some beautiful miniature bays about the coast, but there are but 

 few smooth beaches and these are very small. 



