SEDIME NEARY: BELT OF THE COAST OF BRAZIE 232% 
that have made the place famous, and that were mainly under water 
at the time of his visit, also belong to that age. The occurrence of 
fossil leaves of modern aspect in the turfa seemed to him to confirm 
this view. 
At the time of my visit a boring had been made into the turfa beds 
and, the pit excavated in them being freed from water, a number 
of interesting features that escaped Campos’ observation could be 
seen. A gentle flexture has brought above tide-level, at the oil- 
works, a series of shale beds which are covered by. heavy beds of 
soft sandstone that participated in the flexture. The shales were 
penetrated by the boring to the depth of about 30 meters, but, as 
the record was not at hand no accurate account of it can be given. 
At the top, above the beginning of the boring and immediately under- 
lying the sandstone, is a bed, 4 meters thick, of marahuite contain- 
ing fossil leaves. ‘The boring penetrated clay shale with intercalla- 
tions of rich oil-shale for a depth of about 20 meters, then a thin layer 
of sandstone, and stopped at the top of a second shale bed. As 
shown by fragments of the core that had been preserved, a lower 
layer of marahuite was met with somewhere in the midst of the shale 
series, which also carries fossil leaves, of which a small collection has 
been forwarded to Dr. David White. Cutting the shale beds and 
penetrating into the marahuite (where they become diffused as an 
asphaltic impregnation) are thin (1-2 centimeters) stringers of a 
coal-like substance which, so far. as can be made out, is quite 
similar to the albertite of Nova Scotia. The marine beds of 
the district are reported by Campos at a distance of about 2 kilo- 
meters to the southward and eastward of this locality, and it seems 
to me tolerably certain that they underlie the shale beds. This 
per cent. of hydrocarbons, 10 per cent. of fixed carbon, and 15-20 per cent. of ash 
which is peculiar in consisting in great part of alumina soluble in acids. Campos, 
who has made a careful study of it, showed that it has essentially the composition of 
the so-called Boghead coals which, as Bertrand has shown, consist of a fundamental 
yellow base with a secondary infiltration of asphalt. As employed at Marahu, the 
term also covers a dark-colored shaly material, which is a true oil shale in which the 
hydrocarbons are of a somewhat different composition and the earthy element of the 
ash is argillaceous. Both give a high yield of gas and oil, and in the attempts to work 
the material were used indiscriminately under the general name of turfa. Although 
the yellow material is perhaps a true boghead, it is sufficiently different from the 
ordinary type to merit a distinctive name, and it may be called Marahuite. 
