40 RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN ALABAMA. 



3. Southern red hills, eastern division. 



(Figures 10-15; tables 5-8.) 



This type of country covers about 3,600 square miles in 

 Alabama, and extends in a northeasterly direction across 

 Georgia and South Carolina. It is nearly all underlaid by 

 Eocene strata, mostly argillaceous or siliceous and not much 

 indurated. At the northern edge, however, a strip a few 

 miles wide mapped by geologists in recent years as "Provi- 

 dence sand," and regarded as uppermost Cretaceous, resem- 

 bles the neighboring blue marl region much less than it does 

 the red hills, and is here treated as belonging to the latter. 



FIG. 10. Red level uplands about four miles north of Abbeville, 

 Henry County, with peanuts, corn, and a patch of woods. July 26, 

 1919. 



Limestone is not a prominent constituent of the underlying 

 strata, but there are small areas of it near Clayton and 

 Rutledge, and a large limestone spring in the southern part 

 of Barbour County, with some sinks and ponds near by, 

 presumably indicates the same kind of rock not far below 

 the surface. The f ossilif erous formations are in most places 

 covered by a structureless red sandy clay several feet thick, 

 which is remarkably uniform in appearance for hundreds of 

 miles, and may be of Pliocene or later age, though the mod- 

 ern tendency is to regard it as a mere product of weather- 

 ing. That in turn is often overlaid by a few inches or feet 

 of loose or somewhat loamy sand, particularly in the more 

 level areas. 



