4 A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL. 
taceous, while d represents the latest deposited, or Tertiary 
beds. Now it is evident that the beds a are the oldest, and 
were the first disturbed. The Triassic rocks were deposited 
against them and slightly tilted up, and over these were 
laid down the beds of the Cretaceous and Tertiary. 
If I make a similar section across the coast of Sergipe, a 
little province lying on the coast of Brazil just north of 
Bahia, from the gneiss hills to the sea, we shall find almost 
precisely the same structure, as is exhibited in the following 
section :— 
Serra dos Aymores, d 
Fig. 3. 


a is the gneiss of the coast mountains, and is probably 
Azoic; b, beds of a coarse red sandstone, precisely like the 
Triassic, or New-Red Sandstone of New Jersey, and most 
probably of the same age; c, limestones and sandstones 
with fossils characteristic of the Cretaceous epoch, such as 
Ammonites, Inoceramus, etc., and flint. It is worthy of 
note, that whereas the Cretaceous strata of North America 
have suffered upheaval and folding only in the west, those 
of the eastern border of Brazil had been folded and dis- 
turbed prior to the deposition of the Tertiary strata d, which, 
occupying a higher level than on the east coast of the United 
States, everywhere lap completely over and bury the forma- 
tions which occupy the lower grounds bordering the coast. 
Southward of New Jersey, as well as in the Mississippi val- 
ley, we also find the Cretaceous overspread by the Tertiary. 
In this section e represents beds of sand containing shells, 
etc., of recent species, which have been raised above sea- 
level by the late, and probably now-continuing up-rise of the 
coast. Of this rising of the coast we have at Rio and else- 
where abundant evidence. One finds the nests excavated 
by sea-urchins in the rock, six feet or more above high tide- 
level. At Rio the upheaval amounts to about eight feet. In — 


