468 



J. C. BRANNER GEOLOGIC WORK OF ANTS 



Six kilometers north of the station one was found by measurement to be 

 1.8 meters high and 4.5 + meters wide at the base. This mound was not 

 regarded by the people of the locality as anything unusual. 



To the east of Serrinha several mounds were observed with a height of 

 3 meters and a diameter at the base of 10 meters. These mounds, there- 

 fore, contain each 78.5 cubic meters of earth. 



At and about Catuny, a station on the Sao Francisco Eailway, the ant 

 mounds are notably abundant, and many of them have a height of 1.5 

 meters. 



Figure 3. — Ant-hills made iy the "Formiga de mandioca,'' near Ventura, State of Bahia, 



Brazil 



From a photograph by R, Crandall, 1907 



Along the western half of the Bahia and Minas Eailway, that starts 

 from the coast near Caravellas, in the southern part of the State of 

 Bahia, and runs west 376 kilometers into the State of Minas Geraes, ant- 

 hills are big and abundant. The newer ones are steeply conical, but with 

 age they become more or less rounded and flattened. In the vicinity of 

 Urucii Station (kil. 226) the mounds are so thick and so close together 

 that the country looks like a field of gigantic potato hills. 



In some places they stand so close that their bases touch each other, 

 though such cases appear to be rather exceptional. The mounds in this 



