24 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



CHAPTER lY. 



BRAZILIAN REGIONS. 



The Vincennes, accompanied at first by the otlier vessels of the 

 squadron, left tlie shores of the United States on the 19th of August, 

 A. D. 1838: and after sailing through the Azores Group of islands, 

 and visiting Madeira and the Cape Verd Islands, arrived on the 22d 

 of November in sight of Cape Frio, and on the 23d entered the spa- 

 cious harbor of Rio Janeiro. 



I. Southern Brazil. 



The environs of Rio Janeiro have been much celebrated for the 

 beauty of the scenery. The country is full of steep cone-like hills, 

 one to two thousand feet high, round-topped, and often presenting 

 on their sides inaccessible smoothly-swelling surfaces of bare rock. 

 So steeply sloping are some of the lofty promontories that jut out into 

 the sea, that it is impossible to walk along the shore around their 

 base. 



In accordance with the configuration, the country proved to be 

 exclusively //nr;H'//c ; and to the limit of my excursions, some fifty 

 miles inland, the granite was found to be normal and singularly 

 uniform in its composition ; the only extraneous minerals met with 

 being a few small garnets. A further proof of the great extent of 

 this granitic formation is found in the fact, that the supply of lime 

 for the city is procured by dredging marine shells, chiefly univalves, 

 from the bottom of the Bay. 



We had arrived at the " commencement of the hot season;" also 

 called the "rainy season," rains being "somewhat more frequent than 

 during the remainder of the year;" but from various circumstances 



