BRANNER: THE STONE REEFS ОГ BRAZIL. 31 
on Ше east side of the river between Aracajú and Porto das Redes. 
The rocks are mostly soft, but here and there they are somewhat 
hardened, 
Wherever the water comes from these snuff-colored beds it has a dark 
amber color, 
Sandstones similar to these occur on the south end of the island of 
Itaparica, Bay of Bahia, just south of the village of Сай, and on the 
Opposite side of the passage for a kilometre or two on the east coast of 
the island of Sant’ Anna. These beds have not been examined. They 
are horizontal and rise two or three metres above high tide. 
Near Caravellas the southeastern end of the Bahia e Minas Railway 
runs for nine kilometres over a recently elevated sea-bottom. West of 
kilometre 10 the line passes for five kilometres over the dark brown or 
snuffcolored soft sandstones. These rocks aro exposed only in the bot- 
tom of the trenches beside the track. They lap over the Tertiary (1) 
red beds that extend from kilometre 19 to the western edge of the Serra 
dos Aymorés. Rocks of the same kind aro used about the city of Cara- 
vellas, brought, it is said, from the inland parts of the tidal estuaries, 
but taken out at low tide always. 
Attention should be directed to the section given at Sáo Thomé in 
Chapter IIL of this report. It will be seen that with the shell beds is 
One stratum that bears a strong resemblance to the snuff-colored beds 
found elsewhere. Whether this resemblance means anything I am not 
Prepared to say. Ordinarily, of course, lithologic similarity cannot be 
used to correlate rocks, and least of all over such a wide area as that here 
under discussion. But if the São Thomé beds are to be correlated with 
the other soft sandstones of the coast, either the shell beds at that place 
are late Tertiary or the sandstones are more recent than the Tertiary. 
As already stated, T am disposed to think that these late sediments 
that rest unconformably upon or against Eocene Tertiary or older rocks 
are of Pliocene age. If this supposition is correct, the Miocene period 
is represented on the coast of Brazil either entirely or in part by the 
erosion between the Eocene and the Pliocene, and the land stood con- 
siderably higher during Miocene times than it does at present. 
Recent deposits. — In the absence of thoroughly trustworthy data by 
which the Pliocene beds can be discriminated from the o 
Sediments, it is evidently difficult to offer much reg; 
recent deposits, 
It has alw 
were recent, 
Ider and newer 
arding Pleistocene or 
ays been supposed that the shell beds about the Bay of Bahia 
» and no good reason is known for saying that they are 
