INTRODUCTION. 15 



other hand, to describe each county separately, as in soil 

 surveys and census reports, would involve tiresome repeti- 

 tion, for adjoining counties are often very much alike. The 

 area is therefore divided into seven or eight essentially 

 homogeneous regions, each differing from its neighbors in 

 one or more important particulars, such as soil or topog- 

 raphy.* Four of these, however, are too narrow to include 

 as much as half of any one county (Alabama counties being 

 inconveniently large for statistical refinements), so that we 

 can get little idea of conditions in them from census reports 

 until the counties are made smaller or the census publishes 

 agricultural returns for units smaller than counties.f The 

 small size of such regions, however, does not interfere with 

 getting information about their soils, topography, forests, 

 etc., except that the writer's observations in some of the 

 smallest regions have been too limited for the most accurate 

 results. 



PLAN OF REGIONAL DESCRIPTIONS. 



The descriptions of each of the larger regions follow ap- 

 proximately the plan outlined for the whole area in the table 

 of contents, while those of the smaller regions are neces- 

 sarily less complete, on account of the lack of census statis- 

 tics. 



The mineral resources and water supply are discussed 

 rather briefly, for the former are not very important in this 

 part of the State, and the latter is ample and easily acces- 

 sible nearly throughout. The information about soils is 

 chiefly confined to a study of the texture classification, for 

 we have entirely too few chemical analyses to be representa- 

 tive of any one region. For each region the principal tex- 

 ture classes (such as coarse sand, fine sandy loam, etc.) are 

 listed in order of area as determined from the government 

 soil surveys; and a similar plan is followed with other fea- 

 tures that will admit of such treatment, for example, the 

 commonest trees, the leading foreign nationalities and re- 

 ligious denominations, the principal crops, etc.J 



*For a discussion of the principles of geographical classification 

 see Geol. Surv. Ala., Monograph 8, pp. 17-22. 1913. 



fThe census does give total population (not separated as to race, 

 etc.) for each beat or precinct, but no information about the size or 

 location of the precincts, so that such data are of very little use even 

 for estimating the density of population in any region. 



JFor an exposition of the quantitative regional method of geo- 

 graphical description see School Science and Mathematics (Chicago), 

 18:699-708. Nov., 1918. 



