TRIASSIC. 503 



are red sandy clays, together with, highly ferruginous conglomerates containing numerous 

 quartz blocks; the latter particularly indicate Triassic age, as they are characteristic of a dis- 

 trict north of La Guardia, where the age of this formation is placed beyond question by the 

 occurrence of sOicified cycad trunks ("Famstrunke")- 



Regarding rocks on the River Vulvul, Mierisch says : 



Near Ojoche Trias occurs again in the form of a fine-grained red sandstone which is fairly 

 firm. * * * At Ojoche it is rather a loose pebbly mass containing many quartz blocks 

 and fern trunks, which are superbly preserved. Even the bark and attachments of the roots 

 may occasionally be clearly recognized and the internal structure of the wood is retained to 

 the most dehcate details. These forms probably belong to the genus Tubicauhs. 



The cycads to which Mierisch and Sapper refer were collected by T. H. Leggett 

 and sent to Newberry, who recognized 13 species and assigned them without question 

 to the Upper Triassic. Newberry ®^^' "^ says : 



From the notes furnished me by Mr. Leggett it appears that the plant beds of San Juancito 

 ■form part of a series of argillaceous shales now converted into hydromica schists several hundred 

 feet in thickness. Below these, hmestones crop out which are said to contain Carboniferous 

 fossils, while above them are heavy masses of eruptive rock. The plant-bearing shales are much 

 disturbed and metamorphosed, and are cut by a series of silver-bearing veins which have been 

 worked for many years with considerable success. The outcrops which contain the plants are 

 much decomposed and few good specimens have been obtained from them, but the number of 

 species represented is large and it is evident that further excavation would result in the accumu- 

 lation of much interesting material. 



The age of the deposit as indicated by its plants is plainly Upper Triassic and the flora as a 

 whole has a great resemblance to that of the coal-bearing strata on the Yaki Kiver in Sonora, 

 Mexico, described by me in the report of the San Juan exploring expedition, and to that described 

 by Schenk in "Die fossile Flora der Grenzschichten des Keupers und Lias Frankens" and to 

 Nathorst's ' 'Florau vid Bjuf," a number of the species being identical and others closely allied. 



The localities nearest to Honduras where fossils indicative of Triassic age have been before 

 discovered were in Sonora, Mexico, 2,000 miles north, and in the Andes of Peru, where Triassic 

 rocks were found by David Forbes, 2,000 miles south. The plants contained in the collection 

 made by Mr. Leggett are here briefly described. 



D-E 15. CHIAPAS AND GUATEMALA. 



Sapper *^*^ describes the Todos Santos terrane of Central America as a sequence 

 of red or yellow sandy and argillaceous conglomerates, which are but slightly tilted 

 and not apparently conformable to the underlying Carboniferous. They are unfos- 

 siliferous but may be Triassic, as similar deposits of that age have been found in 

 Honduras and Nicaragua. Sapper says: 



At the northern base of the Sierra Madre in the State of Chiapas one may observe a series of 

 puddingstones, sandstones, and shales, of red or yellow color, which I have called the Todos 

 Santos strata. The beds are but sUghtly inchned toward the north at various places where I 

 have been able to observe the dip. They do not rest conformably upon the Carboniferous lime- 

 stone, and it appears that these deposits were laid down after the formation of the first elevation 

 of the Sierra Madre in the margins of n sea later than the Carboniferous but before the Cretaceous, 

 so that they suffered but Uttle dislocation or alteration. 



I can not give any exact data in relation to the age of these strata, as I have not found any 

 fossils in them. There are very similar deposits of the Triassic period which have been found in 

 the Republics of Honduras and Nicaragua. 



