Cabral (Henrique Read)
Azorean-born director of the Funchal customs and author of works published in Funchal; the text also includes the fossil bivalve genus Cabralia from Selvagem Grande.
He was born in the Azores and for some years was director of the Funchal customs house, taking office in May 1892. He wrote various works, and in this city he published in 1895 a pamphlet entitled Um Novo Mundo, 56 pp., and in the same year a novel which he called historical and to which he gave the title Angela Santa Clara, 201 pp., a work of pure fiction containing many anachronisms and several historical inaccuracies. Its action takes place in Madeira. Cabralia. A genus of bivalve shells peculiar to Selvagem Grande (‘great wild island’). It was found in a fossil-bearing layer of the Miocene Tertiary.
The species Cabralia Schmitzii recalls the names of the late João Cabral de Noronha, former owner of the Savage Islands (Selvagens), and of the Revd Father Ernst Schmitz, a distinguished ornithologist who for many years taught at the Funchal seminary.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 02Place
Places mentioned · 03
1 Abroad
- Azores
Portugal. Birthplace of Henrique Read Cabral.
The Azores, an Atlantic archipelago that shares plant species with Madeira. The Elucidário records settlement there by Madeiran families such as the Bettencourts, the 1801 ban on Azorean wines in Madeira, and imports of Azorean tobacco. It also notes that Azorean farmers were brought to Madeira to teach maize-growing methods.
- Funchal
City where he directed the customs and published his works.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.
- Selvagem Grande
Funchal · Selvagens. Only locality of the fossil genus Cabralia.
Selvagem Grande is the largest island of the Selvagens group, with cisterns, springs and shelters; its highest point is the Pico da Atalaia and the two Palheiros rocks lie nearby. The Elucidário notes its limestone and selenite deposits and characteristic volcanic bombs, and records that it is the only locality of the fossil genus Cabralia. Its geology was studied by Adolfo César de Noronha and in a 1911 paper by Gagel, it was the subject of one of Somerville's 1915 charts, and rodents there prey on seabird eggs.
People
People mentioned · 03-
Azorean director of the Funchal customs from 1892 and author of 'Um Novo Mundo' and the novel 'Angela Santa Clara' (1895).
- Ernst Schmitz1845–1922
Ornithologist and long-time teacher at the Funchal seminary, commemorated in Cabralia Schmitzii.
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Former owner of the Selvagens, commemorated in the name Cabralia Schmitzii.