58 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA. 



other, and has therefore received the most attention. At 

 the several openings it measured usually three feet; some 

 places an inch or two, more or less. It shows here a more 

 uniform thickness, and is less variable than farther up the 

 mountain. In grade it is two to five per cent, lower than in 

 sections 10 and 15. It gradually lowers in grade through 

 the remainder of section 16 and S E. of 17, and N. E. of 20. 

 The 2d bed also diminishes in thickness ; at several places 

 it was found only two inches thick. The 3d bed was partially 

 opened at one place in S. 16, only two feet of shaly red ore 

 was found. Either this bed was very much diminjshed, or 

 the location was not a favorable one to show it. Below this 

 place it has not been seen, and no digging has been done to 

 ^find it. 



The main supply of ores for several miles is now found in 

 the lower beds. In the N. E. i of S. 17 the 4th bed begins 

 to show prominently on the surface. It here is two feet 

 thick, solid, hard, coarse ore, heavily weighted with sand. 

 Below this, and throughout Sect. 20 it is evidently thicker 

 probably three feet. Its out-crop is covered by debris from 

 above. Almost innumerable slides have carried large sec- 

 tions of the bed down below its normal position. These have 

 followed each other down to the limestone ; sometimes to the 

 foot of the mountain. Each one has carried huge blocks and 

 masses of this bed along with it, and thrown them heaped 

 and piled along the face of the mountain. These blocks are 

 of all sizes, from a few pounds to more than ten tons. One 

 block was measured which contained 220 solid feet of ore. 

 These blocks are nearly as hard, and as little affected by ex- 

 posure, as the band rocks of the mountain. From the east 

 line of Sect. 20 to the west line of the Township, there is a 

 greater show of iron ore on the surface than anywhere else 

 on lied Mountain. But it is sandy, low in iron and high in 

 Silica. It is confidently believed that the 5th bed exists 

 here, and that it carries iron ore ol a better quality. Some 

 specimens were found on the face of the mountain that 

 seemed only referable to the 5th bed. But its position is so 

 heavily covered by the slides from the 4th bed, and other- 



