THE BLOUXT MOUNTAIN COAL FIELD. 23 



well-rounded, large-sized pebbles. Its lower part is irony, 

 harder and better preserved. Owing to its disintegration 

 and consequent want of face exposures, the thickness of the 

 upper part could not be ascertained, but it is evidently thin 



probably 10 to 15 feet thick. The lower or irony portion 



of this conglomerate is seemingly thicker. At one place its 

 outcrop measured 40 feet, that might have been greater 

 than the average. 



For 100 feet below this conglomerate bed, the rocks are all 

 quartzitic, many of them very granular. These, with the 

 conglomerate above, to which they are allied, making a 

 stratum 150 feet thick, and containing several good seams of 

 coal, are peculiar to this section of the field, and make the 

 top member of the Blount Mountain Coal Measures. 



Whether this top series of conglomerate and quartzitic 

 measures is the equivalent of the "MontevaUo Conglomer- 

 ates" the top series of the CAHABA COAL FIELD, or not, has 

 not been determined, but is rendered somewhat probable by 

 the geographical relation of the Fields, and their general 

 similarity of structure. That one is the continuation of the 

 other is evident. Both belong to that great strip of coal 

 area cut off to the southeast by the great Jones Valley fold, 

 and running a southwesterly direction; the direction in 

 which it is known the Alabama Coal Measures mainly 

 thicken. These Fields were originally one, and are now only 

 separated by the branch valley, three miles wide, which 

 connects the Jones Valley with the great Coosa Fold. It 

 was, therefore, reasonable to expect a greater similarity be- 

 tween the strata and coals of this Field and the CAHABA im- 

 mediately to the southeast of it, than between it and the 

 WARRIOR FIELD farther to the northwest. This expectation 

 has been reasonably verified in the progress of this survey. 



The other prominent rocks and features of this Coal Field 

 will be noticed under the head of "Details." 



EXPLORATION OF THE FIELD. 



In the beginning of the investigation of this Field a per- 

 sistent effort was made to first develop the vertical and 



