53: 
Between Rio Negro and Lapa, along the Railway cuts, numerous 
large boulders of granite and other rocks are frequently visible in 
a dark gray shale which probably belong at this same horizon, as 
well as those between Serrinha and Palmeiras on the railway 
between Ponta Grossa and Curityba. 
Dr. Orville A. Derby, the distinguished geologist of S. Paulo, 
reports the presence of a great boulder deposit at many localities in 
the state of S&0 Pauloat this same geological horizon, and Dr. Lisboa, 
the eminent engineer of Petropolis, has found many facetted pebbles 
in Minas Geraes wich he ascribes to glacial action,* hence there 
would appear to be abundant evidence that there was a Glacial 
epoch in South Brazil at approximately the same time as in South 
Africa and India or during the epoch of the «Dwyka», «Trap», «Gla- 
cial», and «Talchir» conglomerates of those countries, and that it 
preceded the coal making epoch in South Brazil. 
The Rio Bonito Beds (Coal Measures) 
Above the Orleans conglomerate there comes a series of yellow 
and grayish-white feldspathic sandstones, interbedded with bluish 
gray shales, in which several coal beds occur, one of which, near 
the top of the group, appears to be persistent over a wide region. 
These beds are all finely exposed along Rio Bonito between its 
mouth at Minas in the base of the series, and the village of Palermo, 
8 kilometers above, just below which the top members of the Coal 
Measures pass below water level, and hence these rocks have been 
designated the Rio Bonito Beds. The sansdstones of the Rio Bonito 
Beds or Coal Measures of Brazil are often only partially consolidated, 
or at least so poorly consolidated that they readily disintegrate on 
exposure, and hence they make a very poor quality of building 
stone. The shales also disintegrate quite readily into clays, in 
fact the shales frequently present the aspect of stratified clays. 
SS 
* See note on p. 13, 
