or THE 



( l/NIYERS/Ty ) 

 or 



MURPHREE'S VALLEY. 

 LOCATION AND AREA. 



This valley is the north-eastern prolongation of Jones' 

 Valley. It bears the name Murphree's Valley (from its 

 earliest white settlers) through Blount county, and up to 

 where the Locust Fork of the Warrior crosses it, in Etowah 

 county. From the Warrior to its upper end it is called Bris- 

 tow's Cove. The term "cove," however, is not properly ap- 

 plied here. It is not a cove, such as is usually designated by 

 that name, but a portion, the upper end, about twelve miles 

 in length, of this long, narrow valley. It presents through- 

 out its whole length the same geological and topographical 

 features, and must, therefore, be considered accordingly, 

 without reference to local names or subdivisions. 



The entire length of this fork of Jones Valley from the 

 county line between Blount and Jeiferson, at Village Springs, 

 to its upper end, is about 32 miles, on a direct line, its 

 usual breadth is from three to five miles. Its narrowest por- 

 tion is near its junction with Jones Valley; thence north- 

 eastwardly it gradually widens, and in ten or twelve miles it 

 has reached its maximum width, which it generally preserves 

 till its abrupt termination in the Raccoon Mountain. 



Its trend or course is nearly, but not quite, identical with 

 the axis of Jones' Valley. The latter bifurcates* at the south- 



. Gibson uses the name Jones' Valley to designate the entire valley 

 area separating the Cahaba and Warrior Coal Fields below Village Springs. 

 This area, however, is in its structure a double anticlinal fold with synclinal 

 ridge between them. Both the folds have been overlapped towards the 

 northwest, and each has a fault close to its western border and approxi- 

 mately parallel thereto. Erosion has formed a valley out of each of the 

 Q 



