24 MINERAL, RESOURCES OF ALABAMA. 



ooo feet, and they contain six groups of coal seams, which, in 

 ascending order, are as follows : the Black Creek group with 

 three seams ; the Horse Creek group with five seams ; the Pratt 

 group with five seams ; the Cobb group with three seams ; the 

 Gwin group with two seams ; and the Brookwood group with 

 five seams, ^The seams of a group are seldom more than 25 feet 

 apart, while the groups themselves are usually separated by 200 

 to 300 feet or more of barren measures. Of the 23 seams above 

 mentioned, 21 have in some of their outcrops a thickness of at 

 least two feet, and may be considered workable. The thickness 

 of the seams varies from a few inches up to 16 feet, but as usual, 

 ihe thicker seams are more or less shaly. The Warrior Basin 

 furnished in 1903 nearly 10,500,000 tons of the total product, 

 obtained mostly from the seams of the Brookwood, Pratt, 

 Horse Creek, and Black Creek groups, the Pratt and Horse 

 Creek groups furnishing by far the largest proportion. The 

 mines are in nine different counties, Jefferson county alone sup- 

 plying about 6,250,000 tons, or nearly half the total output of 

 the state. Of the 235 mines, 166 are drifts; 63 are slopes, and 

 6 are shafts. 



Most of the coal of this basin is free burning and good both 

 for steam and domestic purposes and for coking. From the 

 coal of this basin about 2,621,000 tons of coke were made in 

 1903. As a rule the coal of the Warrior field has a jointed 

 structure by reason of which it breaks into cubical or rhom- 

 boidal blocks, though some of it is hard and compact and devoid 

 of this structure. Mineral charcoal is common in the coal of 

 some of the seams, especially west of the Warrior River. 



The accompanying view, Plate III, shows a section of the 

 Blue Creek Coal seani of the Horse Creek group, at one of t 1 ' 

 mines of the Tennessee Coal & Iron Company, in the Little or 

 Blue Creek Basin of the Warrior Basin. 



THE CAHABA COAL FIELD. 



This is the middle one of the three Alabama Coal Fields. Its 

 length from northeast to southwest is 60 to 70 miles and the 

 width of the upper part about five or six miles, but it widens 

 out towards the southwest, and below the line o<f the "L. & > T 

 Railroad it has a width of 12 or 15 miles ; the area embraced is 

 about 400 square miles. 



