16 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA. 



tion thin out towards the southwest, and are not in the 

 Blount Mountain region of sufficient thickness to be of 

 value. This opinion may be correct, many known facts 

 seem to favor it, and yet it is an open question, the facts are 

 mainly of a negative character, and are not conclusive. The 

 same seam or seams occupying the same geological relations, 

 that are prominent, and highly productive, in Georgia and 

 Tennessee, have been traced from the Georgia line almost 

 to the southwestern end of Blount Mountain. Of course 

 this tracing was superficial and from the conditions on the 

 face of mountain could not be continuous, for the southeast 

 face of that steep mountain is generally a confused mass of 

 slides, and but little of its strata can be seen in place, espe- 

 cially where the coal seams belong. But wherever the 

 strata were found in place at the coal bearing horizon, and 

 not buried by slides or talus, there the seams, or clear evi- 

 dence of coal seams were found. Fossil coal plants in great 

 numbers were seen in the rocks, almost continuously along 

 the face of the mountain, and these were generally referable 

 to the*eoal bearing horizons. This seems to be sufficient 

 evidence of the continuity of this as a coal bearing forma- 

 tion. And the fact that the seams which were seen, were 

 too thin to be worked, is not conclusive evidence, in this 

 formation where want of uniformity is the rule, that they 

 may not be thick in other places where they are not ex- 

 posed. 



Several prospect openings have in recent years been made 

 in the face of the mountain to find coal, some of them give 

 encouraging signs, but none of them have been driven in far 

 enough to make a fair test. It will require the expenditure 

 of much labor to make a satisfactory test at almost any 

 point, and while in the present state of knowledge assurance 

 of success cannot be given, yet neither should such efforts 

 be discouraged. 



While these sub-conglomerate measures must in our present 

 state of knowledge, be classed as unproductive, yet they con- 

 stitute an important member in the State's geological col- 



