E. W. Berry — Carboniferous Plants from Peru. 189 



Art. XV. — Carboniferous Plants from Peru; 1 by Edward 



W. Berry. 



Just south of the port of Pisco the peninsula of 

 Paracas, celebrated in the War of Independence, 

 juts out into the Pacific, forming a bold wind-and-wave- 

 swept headland (Lat. 13° 55' S., Long. 76° 33' W.). It is 

 about 220 km. south of Callao and 25 km. southwest of the 

 port of Pisco, and is of great geological interest since it is 

 largely made up of continental Carboniferous sediments 

 and constitutes one of the very few deposits of this char- 

 acter in South America, and the only known occurrence of 

 rocks of this age on the West Coast of South Africa. 



The outcrop of coal-bearing rocks on Paracas was dis- 

 covered by F. C. Fuchs, who published a brief account 2 

 of it in 1900. Fuchs made a considerable collection of the 

 fossil plants, which are now in the Museum at Lima, 

 where I had the privilege of seeing them. He identified the 

 following forms : Catamites suckowii, Sphenopteris har- 

 tle benii, Lepidodendron sternbergii, Sigillaria tessellata, 

 Stigmaria ficoides and Baiera pluripartita, and consid- 

 ered the deposit to be of Upper Carboniferous age. 



The true Sphenopteris hartlebenii of Dunker, which has 

 since been referred to Ruffordia goepperti, is a character- 

 istic species of the Wealden, and the Paracas form which 

 Fuchs thought represented this species is Palmatopteris 

 furcata, a rather widespread Carboniferous fernlike plant 

 of the Sphenopterid group. Fuchs 's Baiera pluripartita 

 is not a Baiera but a species of the genus Eremopteris, his 

 Sigillaria I was unable to identify from an inspection of 

 the material, and as there are no true Sigillarias in my col- 

 lections I cannot say whether his specific name is correct 

 or not. His Lepidodendron is not Lepidodendron stern- 

 berg li but represents both of the species recorded from 

 this locality in the present paper. His Catamites and 

 Stigmaria appear to be correctly determined. 



The scarcity of coal at tidewater on the West Coast 

 aroused a great local interest in Fuchs 's discovery, per- 

 tenencias were quickly taken out and much money was 



1 A fully illustrated account of this flora will be published at a later date. 

 George Huntington Williams Publication, No. 9. 



2 Fuchs, F. C, Nota sobre el terreno carbonif ero de la peninsula de Para- 

 cas, Bol. de Minas Industria y Construcciones, tomo 16, No. 7, Lima, 1900. 



