GEOLOGY OF THE LOWER AMAZON REGION 739 



Islands. Everywhere the petrographic character of these deposits 

 is similar and points to littoral conditions. Katzer states that this 

 distribution forces the conclusion that in the north and east, in the 

 region of Guiana- Cegra, there was a bordering Archean continent, 

 to the south of which lay the sea in which the Amazon sandy deposits 

 were laid down. The land was actually but the western end of the 

 Atlantic- Ethio plan continent. A second continent in the southwest 

 extended from southern Chili and Patagonia westward over a portion 

 of the present Pacific Ocean and probably beyond southern Georgia. 

 This Katzer has named the Southern Pacific Continent. 



The Brazihan Devonic sea, the author continues, is connected on 

 the one side with that of New York (it would be better to say North 

 America), and on the other with South Africa (Cape Colony), because 

 the faunas of these two areas are to a great extent harmonious.^ 

 Less decided, but still surprisingly great, when one takes into con- 

 sideration the long distances, is the harmony between this older or 

 Lower Devonic fauna and those of Australia, Asia, and Europe. 



The Lower Coblenzian faunas of Rhenish Germany remind one 

 forcibly of American Oriskanian. To bring out this fact more 

 clearly in this place, but a short account of the Siegen fauna can be 

 given, the following being the more important forms: Craniella, 

 Orbiculoidea anomala (like American O. ampla), Schizophoria provul- 

 varia^ S. per sonata (like S. oriskania soon to be published), Leptostro- 

 phia explanata (like large Oriskany species). Stropheodonta sedgwicki 

 (type of 5. demissa now known in Maryland Oriskanian), Schu- 

 chertella gigas (often reported as a Hipparionyx), Eatonia^ Rhyn- 

 chonella papilio (type of Plethorhyncha barrandei), Rennselaeria ( ?) 



I The lower Devonic fauna of South Africa has recently been described by Reed 

 (Annals of the South African Museum, Vol. IV, Pts. Ill and IV, 1903-4). These 

 Bokkeveld beds are faunally very closely related to the Amazonian, and especially 

 to the Falkland Islands faunas. Common to two or more of these areas may be men- 

 tioned the following: Orbiculoidea baini, Schuchertella sulivani, Chonetes falklandicus, 

 Spirifer orbignyi, S. lauro-sodreanus, Amhocoelia umbonata, Leptocoelia flabellites, 

 Vitulina pustulosa, Tropidoleptus carinatus. Nearly all the gastropods and pelecy- 

 pods of the Bokkeveld beds are compared by Reed with Amazon species. There 

 are at least fifteen such forms. "The presence of a true Cryphaeus and of spiny 

 forms of Homalonotus indicates that the beds may be referred with certainty to the 

 Devonian, and it is probable that they belong to the lower division of that formation" 

 (Reed, Vol. IV, p. 202). 



