Polytechnic Association. 739 



developed offering better advantages for the manufacture of iron than 

 this point. On the south, in four miles, is a workable vein of red 

 fossiliferous ore. In the valley is the best of limestone. On the 

 north the brown hematite pushes right up into the valley, and there 

 is also a large bed of bog ore ; beyond the hematite, passing over a 

 little limestone and chert, we come to the seven-foot vein of fossilife- 

 rous ore ; then, just beyond, the Warrior coal field. Here five dis- 

 tinct veins of coal have been opened, two and one-third, six, ten, eight 

 and five feet in thickness. Then, for transportation, the A. and C. 

 road will be had, and also a branch from the Grand Trunk. To the 

 A. and C. road from- the coal is a gentle ascent through a gap, hardly 

 at any point more than sixty feet to the mile. Distance from A. and 

 C. railroad to first coal outcrop, three miles ; to the fossiliferous iron 

 ore, one and three-quarters miles ; to the brown hematite, 100 yards 

 to one mile. 



Of these veins of coal, one of them I proved to be a very superior 

 coking coal ; two to be rather poor for coke, semi-bituminous, and 

 burning up with a white ash ; hence I think these last would work well 

 in the furnace. Others were not determined. The dip is very slight, 

 and at no point in the whole Warrior field is it at all likely that the 

 coal is over two hundred feet under ground, unless from cap of some 

 hill, and it is most probable that at most points it is much shallower. 

 All these veins have some shale in them, but I have given the clear 

 thickness of the coal as I measured it. This eastern edge of the 

 Warrior coal field did not have any attention paid to it by Professor 

 Tuomey in his reconnoissance, but I infer that the five and eight feet 

 veins were measured by him on the western side, thus : Coal, thirty- 

 four ; shale, five and one-half; coal, thirty-one inches. Another coal, 

 forty-eight ; shale, fourteen ; coal, ten inches. He also found a vein 

 containing seven feet of coal, but with more shale than any of those 

 I examined. The basin of the field where I examined it is thickly 

 covered with a most superb growth of yellow pines — tall, straight and 

 large-bodied. Building stone of the best quality is abundant, of the 

 red sandstone on the interior basin, and of limestone or white sand- 

 stone under the coal. A strata of the white sandstone is a very 

 superior fine stone. Prof. J. L. Tait, Commissioner of Industrial 

 Resources for Alabama, and a chemist of considerable talent, exam- 

 ined this western edge of the Warrior field for the S. & N. railroad, 

 and found similar outcrops of coal to those I have stated, he being 

 full thirty miles north of the most northern point of my observations 

 at Roup's Valley. He found the coal characteristics as I have stated, 



