2X7 LiGNiTic Stage 25 



beds at the base of the Eocene, including the Midway stage of to- 

 day and perhaps some Lignitic beds, as distin(?tl3^ older than the 

 Buhr-stone and constituting the base of the Eocene series. 



Winchell accordingly classitied the lower Midway beds as 

 known to-day ,with perhaps some Lignitic beds, as Buff sand, im- 

 mediately abov^e which came his Buhr-stone. He apparently 

 overlooked the ia.6t that Hale eight years before had set off the 

 lignite sands and clays (No's, i & 2 ) as distindllj^ older than the 

 beds to the south, afterwards referred to the Buhr-stone and now 

 classed as Lower Claiborne and upper Lignitic. 



After Tuomey's death his 2nd Biennial report was edited by 

 J. W. Mallet, 1858, and lists of fossils are given in the various 

 appendices of the work from Nanafalia bluff and Bell's land- 

 ing. It appears that he and his assistants had explored with 

 some care nearly all the Eocene distridl of the State, but the 

 report is extremely fragmentary^ and nowhere do we find a defi- 

 nite statement of the stratigraphic relations of the Lignitic depos- 

 its to those farther south. The term Buhrstone seems- to have 

 been used to designate the lower moiety of the Eocene in Ala- 

 bama. 



After Tuomey's death and Winchell's departure from Alabama, 

 Dr. Showalter of Union town, Alabama, sent Conrad of the Phil- 

 adelphia Academy severnl new molluscan fossils now known to 

 have come from Lignitic outcrops, though their horizon and 

 location is vaguely defined by Conrad as ' 'a locality- farther north 

 in Alabama than any Mr. Tuomey had explored." These in- 

 clude Exilia pergracilis ^Simpiduni showalferi,S. {Epidrovms) exilis , 

 Con.,M7irex morulus Con., Pseudoliva tuberculifera Co?i., Acteo7iina 

 subvaricata Con., Tornatellcea bella Con., T^irbonilla trigemmata 

 Co7i. Others colle(?ted b)'- T. J. Hale reached the cabinet of James 

 Hall and were described in 1865 by R. P. Whitfield. They include 

 Pyrula Juvefiis , Ftilgur triserialis , Pleuroto7na nasicta,P. capax, Vo- 

 lutanewconibiaiia, Natica ereda, N.perspecta, N. o?iusta, N. ala- 

 bamiensis, IV. aperta, Veliitina expa7isa, Pota7nides alabai7iie7isis , 

 Tnrritella e7i7y7io77ie , T. 77i7dtili7^a, C7icidlcea 77iacrodo7ita , and Cras- 

 satella tumidula. 



Early in the seventies Prof. E. A. Smith began investigating 

 the coastal plain of Alabama ; and as early as 1880 he sent col- 

 lecftions from Bashi creek and Woods bluff, to the Philadelphia 

 Academy for identification. Prof. Heilprin correlated these de- 

 posits with those of upper Marlborough and Piscataway rivers, 



