we 
(Stas ee! Se clone 
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' Of the extent of the coal, he published a brief account in Bar- 
: ; SNe 
a 
| Mr. Lyell on the Coal Field of T 
but no search has yet been made by miners to ascertain whether _ se 
the lead could be worked to advantage. : Sa one? 
It would have been impossible for me, during my short visit to 
this region, to form more than a conjectural opinion respecting its: 
structure, still less could I have determined the geographical area 
of the Alabama coal fields, had not these subjects been previously 
studied, with great care and scientific ability, by Prof. Brumby. 
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nard’s Almanac for 1838, and communicated the same to Dr. Sik « _ 
liman. It appears that south of the waters flowing to the Ten- 
nessee, there are two parallel coal fields—those of the Warrior 
and Cahawba rivers. The western of the two, that of the 
Warrior, has a length of more than 90 miles from northeast to 
southwest, and a breadth of from 10 to 30 miles. It extends 
through the counties of Tuscaloosa, Walker, Jefferson and 
Blount, on both sides of the Warrior River, and its several 
branches. Throughout all this area, seams of bituminous coal 
crop out, the number and thickness of which it has been impos- 
sible as yet to determine, as no regular survey has been com- 
menced of this State. ‘That there must, however, be many dis- 
tinct seams, is evident, as I saw several different ones between 11 
and 20 miles of Tuscaloosa, which had been worked with profit, 
and considerably farther to the northeast, three have been. seen 
superimposed upon each other, the largest and lowest appearing 
in the bed of the Warrior River, and being no less than 10 feet _ 
thick. 
The more eastern coal field, or that of the Cahawba, is nearly 
of equal length and breadth, terminating southwards at Centie- 
ville, where it meets the lower cretaceous beds, and extending 
from thence through Bibb, Shelby, Jefferson and St. Clair coun- 
ties, to the sources of the Cahawba River. In this, also, numer- 
ous beds of coal of good quality have been detected, and some 
of them worked to a small extent. 
From what I saw of the structure of the country between 
Tuscaloosa and Rook’s valley, and from the facts communicated 
to me by Prof. Brumby, I have no doubt that a section passing 
from northwest to southeast, from the coal district of the Cahawba 
to that of the Warrior River, would present an additional axis 
along the line of the water-shed between the two rivers, where 
