1 98 BRANNER 



of the rocks exposed in the railway cuts and about the town. 

 I have some doubt about these fossils having come from Fernao 

 Velho, and yet it is not impossible that in the alteration and 

 oxidation of such beds, the more resisting lumps might be left 

 in this form. This seems all the more probable, too, because I 

 found fossil fishes on the coast at Riacho Doce, only twelve 

 kilometers north of Maceio, in beds that stratigraphically seem 

 to be the same as these at Fernao Velho. 



Shortly after passing Fernao Velho the railway leaves the 

 lake shore and follows up the valley of Rio Mundahu. At 

 several places heavy water-worn boulders are exposed in the 

 railway cuts, sometimes rising as much as six or seven meters 

 above the track. At Usina Leao (kil. 23-24) the granite 

 boulders exposed in the cut by the reservoir are too large to 

 have traveled far. 



A kilometer or more east of Utinga station horizontal gray 

 shales are exposed beside the railway track. These shales have 

 a general lithologic resemblance to the Eocene (?) shales of 

 Riacho Doce. They were not closely examined for fossils, but 

 they look promising. Between this exposure and the Utinga 

 station (kil. 26.6) are large water-worn blocks of granite : 

 similar blocks appear a hundred meters north of the station. 

 These boulders have the appearance of being recent deposits, 

 but they are probably either the basal conglomerate beds of 

 the Eocene (?) series, or else loose materials lately washed 

 from such a basal conglomerate. The material is too heavy 

 to have been moved far from its origrinal source. 



About kilometer 29 the Rio Mundahu flows close to the foot 

 of high hills known as the Serra de Ouro, and the roadbed of 

 the railway has been cut in the steep face of the mountain 

 close to the river. These cuts show almost throughout, and for 

 a distance of two or three kilometers heavy beds of decayed 

 granitic boulders. I was unable to determine certainly whether 

 these boulder beds were formed by the Rio Mundahu, or were 

 the decayed basal conglomerates encroached upon by the 

 stream. Less than one kilometer south of the Cachoeira station 

 these heavy conglomerates are exposed again in the railway 

 cuts, with a thickness of about ten meters. At and immediately 



