3;3() f/. G. Branner — The Tomhador Escarpment. 



graphic, but tliey arc necessarily fragmentary, and do not pre- 

 tend to give a comprehensive idea of the geologic structure. 

 Indeed it is not to be exi)ected, under such circumstances, that 

 ]\[r. Alloivs paper would be more than a series of notes jotted 

 down hastily, and given to Professor Ilartt as of some possible 

 use to future workers, and much better than nothing at all 

 concerning a large and unknown part of Bahia. The route 

 followed by Mr. Allen from Chique-Chique to the city of 

 Bahia is a mere trail passing through a region covered with 

 catinga forests. These forests crowd so closely on all sides 

 that one may often travel all day without being able to see ten 

 meters beyond the dense wall of vegetation about him. On 

 this route, therefore, especially when one is constantly obliged 

 to press forward in order to reach water and food for his a^ii- 

 mals, the casual traveler rarely gets an open view of the region 

 through which he is passing, and still less frequently does he 

 have an opportunity to know and keep track of the geologic 

 structure and of the sequence of the rocks. It is not to be 

 wondered at, therefore, that other persons endeavoring to use 

 Mr. Allen's notes have failed to get a correct idea of the 

 geology of the Serra do Torabador and of the relations of its 

 rocks to the surrounding country. 



The only other naturalist who crossed this same region and 

 who has written about the geology was Emmanuel Liais, for- 

 merly director of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory at Rio 

 de Janeiro. In his Cliinats, Geologic, Faune et Geographic 

 Botanique du Bresil published at Paris in 1872, M. Liais says 

 (pp 180-1 and 189) that he found fossil Lepidotus scales and 

 a ganoid tooth, associated with Paludina and I^lanoriis, at 

 Engenho on the road from the city of Barra on Rio Sao 

 Francisco to the city of Bahia. This reported occurrence of 

 Cretaceous fossils has added greatly to the difficulty of under- 

 standing the geology of the region as a whole, largely because 

 it was assumed that the Lepidotus was from the horizontal 

 beds shown by Mr. Allen to cap the Serra do Tombador. 



During the progress of the work done by the writer the 

 Cretaceous fossils, said to have been found by M. Liais, 

 became more and more puzzling. In order to clear up the 

 matter a special trip was finally made to Engenho, and the 

 road followed by him was examined across the Engenho estate. 

 The limestones he mentions were found without difficulty, but 

 the examination of the region made it clear that some mistake 

 had been made with the materials collected by M. Liais, and 

 that the conclusions drawn from them were unwarranted and 

 quite misleading.* 



* The rocke at the locality where the fossils are said to have been found 

 are mostly in the form of loose fragments strewn down the southwestern 

 slope of the hill near Eio Salitre. Near and at the base of the hill are out- 



