364 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



to be approaching from the North-west, and which came, according to 

 our expectation, in the night. 



Hither the people whom we had seen in the Iriri had conveyed 

 their cargoes of shells, and were employed in completing their conversion 

 into lime. We had before amused ourselves with noticing the stratifi- 

 cation of the beds; now we examined the shells, with such attention 

 as our defective acquaintance with the subject admitted. They were 

 chiefly of the spiral kind, though there were among them many of the 

 beautiful bivalva, which abounds in other parts of the bay, and a few 

 which I had observed no where else. To convert them into lime a kiln 

 is never used, but a circular layer of wood is placed on the ground, and 

 upon it a layer of shells, thus proceeding alternately until a cone is 

 raised, made up of fuel and the material. The wood here employed 

 was altogether Mangue, procured from the marshes on the Eastern side 

 of the bay. Fire being applied to the cone, the produce is an imperfect 

 lime, containing a large proportion of vegetable ashes, mixed with the 

 calcareous matter. 



This entirely agrees with other Brazilian preparations ; we not only 

 find ashes in the lime of this country, but lime-stone in its indigo, sand 

 in its sugar, particles of feldspar amongst its rice, seeds in its cotton, 

 and moisture in its coffee. As far as this is the effect of ignorance it 

 punishes itself, perhaps sufficiently ; but, as before intimated, it is in 

 part the contrivance of chicanery, and therefore ought to be severely 

 chastised by the magistrate, as a crime against the state. 



Early the next morning we steered for Bra90-forte, and, in our 

 way, examined the rocks, which here stand high out of the water. 

 They form an interesting broken mass; some of them have evidently 

 been split, and the parts which heretofore formed one stone now lean 

 from each other, in much the same way as do the sides of the divided 

 tower at Caerphilly in South Wales. The island itself is about a mile 

 round, composed of large masses of granite, scattered in a confused 

 manner, partly covered with earth and forest wood. Its mode of form^ 



