8 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA. 



western end of Raccoon or Blount Mountain, as it is here 

 called ; one branch deflecting eastward joins the Cahaba 

 Valley, the other a little westward of the course of its former 

 axis, makes Murphree's Valley. Just as a stream divides 

 around an island, has the axis of Jones Valley here divided 

 and deflected to the right and left around the point of the 

 mountain. 



The trend of the axis of che Murphree's Valley fold for a 

 few miles above the bifurcation is N. N. E. From the Black- 

 burn Fork of the Little Warrior to the Calvert Fork, it is 

 due N. E. From the Calvert Fork to the upper end it gradu- 

 ally becomes more and more E. N. E , deviating, however, 

 in its whole length only two miles from a due N. E. and S. 

 W. line. 



DRAINAGE. 



To an observer it seems a singular fact that all the prin- 

 cipal streams of this valley flow across it ; that they flow out 

 of the valley and on to the mountain, as the COAL MEASURES 

 are generally called. This fact is easily explained. This 

 valley is emphatically a valley of elevation. And though it 

 has been scooped out by water, and denuded down to the 



anticlinals Jones' Valley on the east, Opossum Valley on the west, while 

 the synclinal between them, in the vicinity of Birmingham, appears in the 

 Chert ridge of the North Highlands. Murphree's Valley is, therefore, the 

 extension northeastward of the westernmost of the two sub-valleys named, 

 i. e., Opossum Valley, while Jones' Valley proper passes towards the north- 

 east into the Great Coosa Valley about Springville. 



From the latitude of Village Springs, northeastward the synclinal separ- 

 ating these two folds, is considerably wider than is the case near Birming- 

 ham, and includes strata as high up in the geological series, as the Coal 

 Measures. As far south as this synclinal has Coal Measures for its surface 

 rocks, it is known as the Blount Mountain, ending near Village Springs. 

 Below this, towards the southwest where the surface rocks are chiefly the 

 cherts of the Knox Dolomite, with occasional traces of overlying strata up 

 to Clinton, the synclinal so far as I know has no distinctive name beyond 

 the general one of Flint Ridge, till in the vicinity of Birmingham, it has 

 recently been called the North Highlands. See map section in appendix 

 to Squire's Report on Cahaba Co?l Field. E. A. S. 



