1S6 On the Nwmmulite Limestone of Alabama. 



Ut. XV. 



>/ 



Nummulite Limestone of Alabama ; by C. Lyell, F.R.S. 

 and V.P.G.S. 



In a former paper, published in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society of London,* I stated that the limestone con- 

 taining abundantly the Nummulites Mantelli, Morton, which oc- 

 curs near Suggesville, Clarksville, and other places between the 

 rivers Alabama and Tombeckbee in the state of Alabama, was a 

 member of the eocene tertiary group, and that so far from con- 

 stituting any part of the cretaceous formation as had formerly 

 been imagined, it holds in reality a place high up in the eocene 

 series of the South. In the same memoir I gave a section ex- 

 tending from Claiborne through Suggesville and Macon to the 

 west ot Clarksville, Alabama, in which the position of the so- 

 called Nummulite limestone was explained. It was stated to be 

 newer than all the beds of the well-known Claiborne bluff, and 

 I mentioned that "the bones of the gigantic cetacean called 

 Zeuglodon by Owen, were everywhere found in Clarke county, 

 in a limestone below the level of the Nummulite rock, and above 

 the beds which contain the greater number of perfectly preserv- 

 ed eocene shells, such as Cardita, Planicosta and others."! 



At the time that my first communication was written, I had 

 not finished my explorings in Alabama nor visited St. Stephen's 

 blurt on the Tombeckbee river, where I afterwards obtained addi- 

 tional proofs of the order of superposition above indicated. Nor 

 nad 1 then compared the eocene strata at Vicksbun? with those of 

 Jackson in the state of Mississippi, which throw light on the 

 same question of relative position. Before adverting to these last 

 mentioned localities, I will first offer a few observations on the 

 country between Claiborne and Clarksville, for I understand that 



u u x u been lately thrown on the correctness of the views 

 which I have expressed relatively to the true age and place in 

 the series to be assigned to the /'rotten limestone of Alabama," 

 and the associated rock in which the fossil first named Nummu- 

 lites Mantelli, by Morton, abounds.} 



Before restating the grounds of my former opinion and corrob- 

 orating it with fresh proofs, it may be well to say something ot 

 the nature and zoological relations of the discoid bodies from 

 Alabama which have passed under the name of Nummulites and 



* Vol. H, p. 405, May, 1346. 



1 ?" p l - f°%± ?- eoL y °°-' voL "• P- 409 ' Ma v, 1846. , .:. 



m l ? \. M £ c , h,so " '' mno «nced to the Geological Society of London, ■t.» b '.' r 



3&f M , ay ? t , h ' ^47- that he had just recefved a Wf«m M. Ag-*J 

 which U stated that M. Desor had clearly shown that the rotten limestone* 



as 1 TnYT n0t "« lta ? C0U9 . as Morton and Conrad had supposed, nor eoceW- 

 Biaritz considered it, but was of the age of the terrain nunmultop* ol 



