SEDIMENTARY \BELE OF. THE COAST OF BRAZIL 222 
upper series of soft sandy and clayey sediments that for the most 
part is without fossils and undisturbed by earth-movements of a 
character to affect the horizontality of the beds. So far as known 
to the writer, in no place have these two series been seen in actual 
juxtaposition, and an unconformability between them is rather 
assumed than actually proven. In each series there are beds, especi- 
ally the sandy ones, that closely resemble each other, so that their 
discrimination is often a matter of doubt. 
Following Allport, and Hartt, and the various paleontologists to 
whom their material was submitted, the lower series has been referred 
to the Cretaceous and the upper to the Tertiary. This classification 
has lately been questioned by Branner (12, 13, 14), who is inclined 
to refer to the Tertiary much that has hitherto been called Cretace- 
ous. In his recent examination (the most complete and minute 
that has yet been made) of the coast from Natal, Rio Grande do 
Norte, to Caravellas in southern Bahia, he found that none of the 
physical characteristics (lithological character, coloring, inclination 
of the beds, etc.) can be depended upon for the discrimination of 
the two series, though he does not put in doubt their actual existence. 
In examining the paleontological evidence, he finds that unequivocal 
Cretaceous marine types have been found only in the Sergipe basin 
and at Parahyba, and that the general aspect of the faunas of the 
Pernambuco (Maria Farinha, Olinda, and Ponto das Pedras) and 
Para basins is decidedly Tertiary rather than Cretaceous, and that 
the same is the case with the invertebrates of the Bahia fresh-water 
basin.* 
These doubts of Dr. Branner are undoubtedly well founded, 
and in a recent excursion in the region about Bahia and Ilheos I 
fully sympathized with him in his difficulties in determining the 
dividing line between the upper and the lower series, and like him I 
referred to the latter a number of outcrops that formerly I should 
tIn the earlier of his papers embodying this view Branner refers these supposed 
Tertiary faunas to the Eocene, and quotes Dr. Gilbert D. Harris to the effect that the 
marine forms are probably not older than the Midway Eocene. In his latest paper 
(14), however, he mentions Cretaceous cephalopods from one of the Pernambuco local- 
ities, and quotes a letter from Dr. Smith Woodward to the-effect that the vertebrates 
of the Bahia Basin suggest a doubt as between Jurassic and Cretaceous rather than 
between Cretaceous and Tertiary. 
