\ 



BRANNER : THE STOXE REEFS OF BRAZIL. 31 



on the east side of the river between Aracajii and Porto das Redes. 

 The rocks are mostly soft, but here and there they are somewhat 

 hardened. 



Wherever the water comes from these snuflf-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 Catu, 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 Eailway 

 runs for nine kilometres over a receutl}' elevated sea-bottom. "West of 

 kilometre 10 the line passes for five kilometres over the dark brown or 

 snufF-coloi'ed soft sandstones. These rocks are exposed only in the bot- 

 tom of the trenches beside the track. They lap over the Tertiary (?) 

 red beds that extend from kilometre 19 to the western edge of the Se'rra 

 dos Aymores. Rocks of the same kind are 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 Sao Thome in 

 Chapter III. 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 similai'ity cannot be 

 used to correlate rocks, and least of all over such a wide area as that here 

 under discussion. But if the Sao Thome 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, I 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 older and newer 

 sediments, it is evidently difficult to offer much regarding Pleistocene or 

 recent deposits. 



It has always been supposed that the shell beds about the Bay of Bahia 

 were recent, and no good reason is known for saying that they are 



