BRANNER-AGASSIZ EXPEDITION TO BRAZIL 1 97 



be almost perfectly flat, but away to the north and northeast one 

 sees three clusters of rounded hills rising above it and resem- 

 blinor the granites that everywhere form the landward margin 

 of these diments. These are the peaks of the Serra de Mariquita. 



Mr. Haynes informed me that a few years ago at the railway 

 shops on the flat ground near the terminal station at Maceio a 

 driven well w^as put down to the depth of 200 meters. The 

 water obtained was brackish and the well was abandoned. No 

 detailed record was kept of the strata passed through in sinking 

 this well, but the materials are all soft and appear to be the 

 newer beds that abut against the strata which form the high 

 plateau of the upper city and the surrounding country. 



On leaving Maceio station the railway follows the strip of 

 low ground between the north side of the Lagoa do Norte and 

 the plateau. In some places the road bed has the steep hill 

 rising on the north and the water of the lake on the south, 

 while at others there is a wide strip of mangrove swamp be- 

 tween the lake and the hills, and at still others there are strips 

 of arable land on these flats. Wherever rocks are exposed 

 along the north side of the railway between Maceio and 

 Caihoeira they are the yellow, red, purple, gray, white, and 

 mottled beds so characteristic of the weathered portions of the 

 Eocene (?) along this part of the Brazilian coast. These 

 Eocene ( ?) hills have slopes as high as 45°, and in places 

 they are even steeper. At Bebedouro station (kil. 6) a stream 

 from the north enters the lake through a flat-bottomed, steep- 

 sided valley. 



At Fernao Velho (kil. 14) there are good exposures of the 

 parti-colored beds near the station, and half a kilometer be- 

 yond the station a cut shows the horizontality of these beds 

 fairly well ; but they are all more less oxidized, even to the 

 lowest ones exposed. 



At the Instituto Archeologico e Geographico Alagoano in 

 Maceio, I was shown some fossil fishes said to have been found 

 at the town of Fernao Velho. These fossils are in hard gray 

 or cream-colored lumps or concretions of limestones. Lith- 

 ologically the rocks bear a strong resemblance to the Ceara 

 limestone that contains the fossil fishes, and very little to most 



