A botanical and geological trip on the Warrior and Tombigbee 
rivers in the coastal plain of Alabama 
ROLAND M. HARPER 
Since Nuttall’s memorable journey of exploration on the Ohio, 
Mississippi, and Arkansas Rivers in the years 1818 to 1820,* 
probably very few botanists have traveled any considerable dis- 
tance by daylight on any of the navigable rivers of our coastal 
plain. At the present time passenger traffic has almost ceased on 
many rivers which were once important arteries of commerce, 
partly on account of railroad competition and partly on account 
of great variations in the volume of water, due presumably to de- 
forestation of drainage areas ; and even where there are still regular 
lines of steamboats it is not easy to plan a satisfactory trip on one 
of them. For the boat schedules are in many cases irregular, in- 
frequent, or not widely advertised, and the connections with rail- 
roads too often inconvenient or uncertain; and above all, when 
a river journey extends over 100 miles or so a part of it is usually 
made at night and a good deal of scenery thus missed. 
On account of these conditions, previous to the fall of 1908 I 
had traveled on a river boat but once (and that was for a distance 
of only about twenty miles, on the Tennessee River in the Paleo- 
zoic region of Alabama); but in October of the year named a rare 
opportunity was presented for a much more extensive river trip, 
all by daylight, and at the same time with ample facilities for 
botanizing. An expedition was being organized by Dr. Eugene 
A. Smith, state geologist of Alabama, for the purpose of clearing up 
a few doubtful points in stratigraphy by examining the exceptionally 
complete geological sections displayed in the river-bluffs between 
Tuscaloosa and Mobile; and the writer was invited to participate. 
The other members of the party were seven well-known geologists 
besides Dr. Smith (most of them connected with state ais ee 
* See his “ Seca of travels into the ees territory,”’ published in 184s: iat 
reprinted in 1905 as vol. 13 of Thwaites’s ‘‘ Early western travels. 
107 
