42 MINERAL RESOURCES OF ALABAMA. 



Shales and Clays, suitable for Paving Brick, Pressed Brick, 

 etc. The Carboniferous shales at Coaldale, and at the Graves 

 Mines near Birmingham, analyses of which have been given in 

 the preceding table, have for a number of years been used in 

 the manufacture of vitrified brick for paving, and have come 

 extensively into the market. In the various clay deposits men- 

 tioned above there are clays in abundance, which have been 

 used in making all the finer grades of building bricks. 



It seems superfluous to speak of these in more detail, since 

 they and the other kinds of clays are somewhat fully described 

 in Bulletin No. 6, of the Alabama Geological Survey, prepared 

 by Dr. H. Ries, of Cornell University. 



THE CEMENT RESOURCES OF ALABAMA. 



SLAG CEMENT. 



No details are here given concerning the slag cement mater- 

 ials, since they are manufactured products. Attention is di- 

 rected, however, to the circumstance that our furnaces are daily 

 turning out vast quantities of slag suitable for making cement, 

 and that plants for this purpose are already in active and suc- 

 cessful operation. 



PORTLAND CEMENT. 



Alabama contains large supplies of limestone, chalk, clay and 

 shale well adapted for Portland Cement manufacture, and wide- 

 ly distributed throughout the state. Coal and labor are abund- 

 ant and cheap, transportation facilities are excellent, and many 

 of the best limestone and chalk localities are situated on navi- 

 gable rivers, giving ready access and cheap water transporta- 

 tion to Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, and other 

 ports of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. This advantage of lo- 

 cation will be immensely increased when work is begun on the 

 Isthmian canal, for cement plants located in Alabama will be 

 more than a thousand miles nearer to the Isthmus than their 

 nearest possible competitors. 



The limestones and shales of the northern part of the state 

 lie so close to each other and above all, so close to the great 

 coal mines which must supply the fuel, that the establishment of 



