Quaternary Deposits , Etc. — Mills . 
349 
deepening of the channels of drainage though comparatively 
slight goes to show, though it may not prove conclusively, 
that the region has been raised since the time when the loess 
was deposited, and detailed investigations might show that the 
Quaternary or recent elevation is the same that caused the 
terracing along the coast, though the deposits from which the 
terraces were carried may be of Tertiary age. 
The elevation above the sea level at the Lagoa da Nacao 
was barometrically determined by Mr. A. A. Stukey to be 
about 675 feet, and according to a railroad survey the bed of a 
little stream near Bage is about the same. 
My opportunities of observation in Minas Gerses were limit¬ 
ed to a belt of country traversed by the routes from Parahyba 
river to the city of Diamantina. One of these routes leaves the 
Parahyba at Entre Rios and the other at Porto Novo daCunha, 
and the two meet between the villages of Sao Sebastiao and 
Inficionado. The route from Entre Rios leaves the Parahyba 
at an elevation above sea-level of 883 feet (R. R.); 1 passes 
along the Parahybuna, up the south-easterly slope of the 
Mantiqueira range to its crest, where the saddle in which the 
railroad now passes has an elevation of 3,665 feet (R. R.), and 
thence continues on or near the divide of the head-waters of 
the Doce and Gequitinhona on the east; ' and those of the 
Parana and Sao Francisco on the west. The country is, com¬ 
pared with the portion of Rio Grande do Sul above described, 
a high and mountainous one. Barbacena, a short distance east 
of the crest of the Mantiqueira range is at an elevation of 3,786 
feet (R. R.); the railroad crosses the Carandahy at 3,494 feet 
(R. R.) : the common road crosses the divide between the 
waters of the Parana and Sao Francisco at 3,700 feet, crosses 
the stream at foot of the Serro de Oaro Branco near the vil¬ 
lage of Oaro Branco at 3,126 feet, the crest of the Serro 
de Oaro Branco which is the divide between the waters of the 
Sao Francisco and of the Doce at 3,946 feet, the Falcao at 
3,113 feet, the crest of a spur of Itacolumi at 4,064 feet, and 
the Rio do Carmo at Oaro Preto at 3,319 feet, and the same 
1 Elevations marked B. R. are from reports of railroad surveys ; those 
given without this mark or other reference to authority are from my 
own determinations with aneroid barometer. These are checked only 
by repetition, and I give them reluctantly; but they are approximately 
correct and will serve for present purposes. 
