350 ' ORTMANN — DISTRIBUTION OF DECAPODS [April 3, 



ceous deposits are found in West Africa, it was soon recognized l 

 that the respective beds are younger, and are certainly not older, 

 than the Middle Cretaceous (in Cameroon); and especially Kossmat 

 (1895) nas demonstrated that the Cretaceous beds of West Africa 

 (Angola, Elobi Islands, etc.) belong to the Middle and possibly 

 the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian and Lower Senonian), and 

 that they unmistakably possess a South Indian character, being 

 connected probably around the Cape of Good Hope with the Indian 

 Ocean. According to Kossmat, also the Brazilian Upper Creta- 

 ceous deposits in Sergipe, Pernambuco, etc., 2 are of the South Indian 

 type. Farther' north, on the coasts of Morocco and Algiers, 

 typical Mediterranean Cretaceous beds are present. The upper- 

 most Cretaceous beds of Angola, however, are said to exhibit 

 traces of the influence of the Mediterranean province (Kossmat, p. 

 465). 



According to these facts we are to form the following idea as to 

 the destruction of the old Brazilo-Ethiopian continent: It existed 

 in its full development during the Jurassic and in the beginning of 

 the Cretaceous time, being the western remnant of the old Paleo- 

 zoic Gondwana Land, and probably it had the extension assigned to 

 it by Neumayr — that is to say, it connected Africa with the north- 

 ern as well as with the southern parts (Brazil) of South America. 

 In the middle of the Cretaceous time the southern Atlantic Ocean 

 was formed and the sea extended from the south (connected around 

 the Cape of Good Hope with the Indian Ocean) toward the 

 equator. About the same time, or rather a little later (in the 

 Upper Cretaceous), a branch of the new South Atlantic extended 

 into what is now the valley of the Amazonas river, separating the 

 southern part of the Brazilian mass from the northern (Guiana) 

 (compare below). But Guiana remained connected with Africa 



1 See Koenen, A. von, in Abk. Ges. Wiss. Goeltingen, Ser. 2, Vol. 1, 1897, 

 1898. 



' Described by White [Arch. Mus. Rio Janeiro, Vol. 7, 1888). Although 

 some of these beds (marine beds in Sergipe and Parahyba) are without any 

 doubt Upper Cretaceous, Branner ( Canadian Meeting Anieric. Instit. Min. 

 Engin., 1900, p. 17 f., and Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. 13, I902) has lately 

 demonstrated that other marine sediments in Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco 

 Parahyba, Rio Grande do Norte and Pará belong to the Eocene Tertiary (I902 , 

 pp. 47, 64, 85, 91, 96), and also that the freshwater deposits of the Bahia basin are 

 probably Eocene (1900, p. 18). 



