NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



341 



of comforts, which the growing wealth of the place has enabled it 

 to collect. It has imbibed the spirit of a thoroughfare in more respects 

 than one, having become not only civil, but independent, frank, and 

 haughty, in a measure by no means common in Brazil. 



At the entrance of the Inhomerim, on the right, lies a pile of 

 broken rocks, which look as though they had been tossed from a con- 

 siderable distance, and had fallen on each other. Some of the rounded 

 masses seem to have been broken by their mutual concussion, and the 

 severed fragments lie by the side of each other ; and where a broad flat 

 stone has been undermost, it has, in some instances, been split in a ray- 

 like fracture, and partly sunk into the soil by the stroke of a heavier 

 round one which still lies upon it. Such appearances are common 

 in the country surrounding the Upper Bay, and unite to show 

 that many parts, now detached from each other, once formed large 

 solid masses, and that, they were removed from their native situations 

 when in that state. Report attributes this separation of their parts to 

 crystals formed in the heart of the stones, which, on expansion, burst 

 the rocks in which they are enclosed ; but I never met with a person 

 who had seen such a crystal, nor in the divided faces could I ever 

 perceive the smallest trace of its existence. I am, therefore, strongly 

 inclined to think, that the effect is produced by different causes, among 

 which lightning may, perhaps, be not the least operative. Were a spirit 

 of philosophic investigation awakened in Brazil, I would recommend to 

 its notice these rocks and their phenomena. 



Leaving the mouth of this river, we attempted to run along the 

 shpre, but found ourselves embarrassed by rocks and shoal water. We 

 were therefore driven to cross the expanse of mud once more, and skirt 

 its Southern edge at a distance of nearly four miles from land. The 

 coast rose as we proceeded, and the water deepened ; the scenes on shore 

 became more attractive, that comprehending Nossa Senhora da Guia 

 particularly so. 



The channel conducting to this place is just at the edge of the 

 mud-bank, among the rocks ; and the current which runs through them 



