10 BULLETIX: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



In 184:2 M. A. Pissis presented to the French Academy of Science a 

 paper on Brazilian geology/ in which he speaks of the Bahia sediments 

 as both marine and fresh-water Tertiary. The only mention Pissis 

 makes of palaeontologic evidence is (p. 398) that the beds contain fossil 

 pectens, oysters, and cythereas, — genera which later collectors have 

 not found there, and which, if found, would not alone fix the Tertiary 

 age of the beds. 



In 1859 Prof. T. Eupert Jones described a small collection (five 

 species) of Entomostraca from Bahia. Professor Jones said of these 

 fossils that they appear to be allied to recent and Tertiary species. In 

 the same place S. Allport describes vertebrate remains from the Bahia 

 beds, among which are the scales of Lepidotus. These two papers of 

 Allport and Jones are the first we have that afford definite palaeontologic 

 evidence of the age of the Bahia sediments. Unfortunately the evi- 

 dence is conflicting from the very beginning : the Entomostraca are 

 allied to recent and Tertiary species, while the Lepidotus is a Cretaceous 

 species.- 



In 1869 Marsh described^ from the Bahia basin Crocodilus harttii, 

 which he says resembles a species from the Miocene of Virginia, and 

 another from the Tertiary of Xew Jersey.* Another fossil vertebrate, 

 TJioracosaurus hahiensis, he says, is probably allied to the modern 

 gavials. 



In 1870 Hartt's book on the geology of Brazil ^ appeared, in which 

 he speaks of the beds of the Bahia basin as lower Cretaceous (p. 350), 

 and possibly Xecoraien (p. 555). He describes from these beds a few 

 new fossils, and gives much data upon the details of geologic structure 

 about the Bahia basin, but there is nothing that can be regarded as 

 having diagnostic value in a doubtful case, and no palaeontologic evi- 

 dence to warrant the reference of some of the beds to the Lower Creta- 

 ceous and other-s to the Tertiary (p. 377). 



1 Memoire sur la position ge'ologique . . . de la partie australe du Bresil. Mem. 

 de rinstitut de France, X. p. 353-412. 



- On the discovery of some fossil remains near Bahia in South America. S. 

 Allport, T. Rupert Jones, Note on the fossil Entomostraca from Montserrate. 

 Quarterly Journal Geological Society, December, 1859, XVI., p. 263-268. Lon- 

 don, 1860. 



2 0. C. Marih, Notice of some new reptilian remains from the Cretaceous of 

 Brazil. Amer. Joum. Sci.. XCVII., p. 390-392. New Haven, 1869. 



* Dr. A. Smith Woodward notes that this is a detached tooth, and should not 

 be considered in this connection. (Private letter, Nov. 7, 1902.) 



^ Ch. Fred Hartt, Geology and physical geography of Brazil. Boston, 1870. 



