784 Transactions of the American Institute. 



cents per ton for delivering at mouth of tunnel. Thence it is con- 

 veyed by a narrow gauge road one and a quarter miles to the branch 

 road from S. R. and D. R. R. ; there it is dumped in cars for market. 

 It is screened and affords i ome dust and nut. The lump sells at five 

 dollars per ton at the branch road, the nut at two dollars, dust the 

 superintendent would be glad to get out of his way by delivering at 

 two dollars. A great deal of the last would answer well for steam- 

 making in any manufacturing establishment, as it is not fine. The 

 cars are conveyed to the dump by a small locomotive, which does 

 the work of ten mules. The product of the mine is from sixty to 

 eighty tons per day, and iorty-two hands are employed. I esti- 

 mated the cost of getting out the coal at about two dollars per ton. 

 Sold at the dump at five dollars, there would appear to be profit ; 

 yet I was informed that the company were not making money. The 

 price in Selma was seven dollars fifty cents and eight dollars, and in 

 Mobile about one dollar and two dollars more. It should and can be 

 delivered at one-half those prices. The railroad men say that if the 

 business is carried on to such an extent as to allow them to run 

 special coal trains they will make freights lower. It is certainly a 

 very good coal for steamships, burning up entirely to ash without the 

 slightest clinker ; and, if English vessels run to Mobile or Pensacola, 

 should be afforded there for them at less rates. 



At the other mine, the miners receive one dollar per ton, as the vein 

 is not so wide, but there the broad gauge branch road runs directly to 

 the mine. It is worked through a tunnel, without steam power; the 

 mine drains itself, and the miners work up a slope instead of down. 

 The coal appears to be the same, though the ash is whiter, the vein 

 narrower and the topographical position lower. Both the tunnels 

 run in on the outcrops. I have never seen anywhere else such a 

 wealth of fossil plants as are found here in the slates above the coal. 



These are all the regular workings on the lower portion of the 

 Cahawba field. It is evident there is to be found in it a good coal 

 for coke, as from one of the openings made during the war on the 

 northern side a very superior article of that grade was mined. This 

 mining is distant from Montevallo about twelve miles. The corre- 

 sponding vein must exist on the southern side, though dislocated by 

 the pressure of the silurian strata. 



The veins of coal in the Cahawba field across this broad part, 

 counting from the middle of the field northward, number sixteen. 

 These are, as we have stated, all in regular order and inclination. On 

 the upper or narrow neck of the field most of these veins still exist, 



