20 ANNALS NEW YORE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



cause it will extend the limits of the Cretaceous deposits over a vast 

 portion of northeastern Brazil. 



Cretaceous deposits have been reported from Bahia, Espirito Santo, 

 Aracaju, Alagoas, Maria Farinha, Jatoba, Eiacho Doce, Serra de iVra- 

 ripe and Pirabas in Brazil; from the base of the mountains of Guiana; 

 from Bogota and the region of Lake Maracaibo ; from Sierra de Merida 

 of Colombia and Venezuela; from Cordillera Nevada and from both 

 sides of the Andes in the region of Alto Kio Maranhao; from Eio Acre 

 (Mosasaurus) ; from Caracoles, Bolivia; from near Lima, Peru; Cochi- 

 yacu west of Eio Huallaga and north to Celendin; from near Guayaquil; 

 from Tingo and south along both sides of the Andes toward Chili at 

 Tome, etc. ; from Laguna Argentina to Tierra del Fuego ; from Eio de 

 los Patos west of San Juan, Argentina; from Colchagua, Coquimbo and 

 Copiapo in Chili; from Sierra de Zenta east of San Juan, and perhaps 

 from Gran Chaco toward the mountains about the headwaters of Eio 

 Bermejo and Pilcomayo, but I am inclined to believe that these de- 

 posits are fresh water, as the most common form, Melania, is not typi- 

 cally marine. At any rate, this region needs some more careful study. 

 The locations of these formations are shown on Plate IX. 



Tertiary 



Professor Branner is inclined to consider some of the marine forma- 

 tions of northeastern Brazil Eocene. This view has been recently cor- 

 roborated by President Jordan's studies on the fossil fishes from Eiacho 

 Doce, but neither of these authors has entirely excluded the possibility 

 of these formations being upper Cretaceous. 



As far as the writer has been able to ascertain, from a first-hand 

 knowledge of the region in question as well as from that of Crandall 

 and also from a consideration of President Jordan's paper on the fossil 

 fishes of the Serra de Araripe, it does not appear that any decisive evi- 

 dence exists which establishes any marine Tertiary in northeastern 

 Brazil. Fossil diplomystid fishes, the subject of President Jordan's paper, 

 are known not only from the Cretaceous of Brazil, but also from the 

 Cretaceous of other Continents. The fact that most of the diplomystids 

 are found later than the Cretaceous epoch is no evidence that those of 

 Serra de Araripe are Eocene. Furthermore, the peculiarities of the 

 diplomystids of the Serra de Araripe will, with all probability, be found 

 in various other localities of this region, when more exploration is com- 

 pleted. 



For several reasons, therefore, I have mapped the outline of the Cre- 

 taceous belt on the map of the Tertiary epoch with a mark of interro- 



