FISHES OF CEARA. BRAZIL JORDAN AXD BRANNER 5 



the limestone concretions. Possibl>' the sandy concretions are not 

 from the same localities as the more calcareous ones. 



The fossil fishes from Ceara are generally spoken of as coming 

 from Barra do Jardim, but they have been found at many other local- 

 ities, though always about the base of the Serra do Araripe. Gard- 

 ner's collections came from Barra do Jardim, from a sugar planta- 

 tion called Massape (or Maqape, as he spells it), five leagues east of 

 Barra do Jardim ; from Mundo Novo, three leagues west of Barra do 

 Jardim, and from Brejo Grande, a plantation west of the Serra do 

 Araripe and about 35 miles west of Crato. Capanema found them 

 also at Breijinho, a locality not mentioned by Gardner, but in the 

 same neighborhood. 



A few other fossils occur in the rocks containing the fossil fishes, 

 but no effort seems to have been made to collect these other fossils 

 on the ground. The only ones mentioned by the collectors are noted 

 here. Gardner found a single valve of a Venus half an inch long, 

 the cast of a cephalopod an inch and a half long and supposed by 

 him to be a Turrilites. Both of these came from loose pieces of 

 sandstone. He was told of a small snake having been found rolled 

 up in one of the concretions, but he thinks it was probably a species 

 of cephalopod.^ Judging from the Rocha Collection, it seems more 

 likely that it was a specimen of Belonostomus coiiiptoiii, which is 

 occasionally found thus coiled up. 



The specimens in the Rocha Collection contain a fewentomostracan 

 remains, but none of them have been specifically idenitfied. Dr. A. 

 Smith Woodward notes that entomostracans found in the British 

 Museum specimens were examined by Prof. T. Rupert Jones and 

 Mr. C. D. Sherborn, who refer them with some doubt to Cythcridea.- 



Barao de Capanema, who visited the Serra do Araripe in 1859, 

 reports finding associated with the fossil fishes coprolites "the bones 

 probably of saurians. the teeth of fishes, and an unknown plant with 

 imbricated leaves. I heard of fossil shells and zoophytes on the 

 Piauhy frontier."" Gardner says that flints are common on the side 

 of the mountain northwest of Crato, and he speaks of chalk being 

 found in the mountains near Crato. Gardner found limestone and 

 marl beneath the fossiliferous sandstone, and beneath the limestone 

 a bed of lignite about two feet thick. Capanema thinks that the 



' Geologia Elementar, por N. Boubee, p. 55 ; Rio, 1846 ; Trans. Brit. Assoc, 

 1840, 120. 



^ Proc. Zo51. Soc, London, 1887, 541. 



^Trabalhos de Commissao Scientifica de Exploraqao, i, Introducgao, p. 130. 

 Rio de Janeiro, 1862. 



