60 MINERAL RESOURCES OP ALABAMA. 



a railroad. A little testing, it can hardly be called mining, has 

 also been done in several places in Clay county, and also in 

 Coosa and Chilton. 



Corundum, Asbestos and Soap stone. 



These minerals are very commonly associated together and 

 with dikes of basic igneous rocks. The main corundum locali- 

 ties are in Tallapoosa county, near Easton postoffice, two or 

 three miles northwest of Dudleyville ; and near the river, several 

 miles south of Alexander City. In Coosa county many fine 

 crystals have been obtained from the vicinity of Hanover. 

 While the neighboring rocks in all these localities are perido- 

 tites, the masses of corundum are mostly found loose in the soil. 

 Very little has been done at any of the localities mentioned 

 towards actual mining, though a fiew shallow pits have been 

 sunk, in some of which the corundum was obtained in small 

 quantity. Dr. Lucas some years ago collected and shipped 

 frdrn Tallapoosa county such fragments and masses of corun- 

 dum as were to be obtained from surface occurrences and shal- 

 low pits. 



Asbestos is not uncommon in all the regions which show cor- 

 undum, but it has not yet been found in quantity or of quality 

 which would make it of commercial value. 



Soapstone appears to be much more widely distributed than 

 the other two associated minerals, and it is found in nearly if 

 not all the counties of the metamorphic region. One common 

 occurrence of it in Tallapoosa, Chambers, and Randolph coun- 

 ties particularly, is as a greenish schistose rock, consisting of a 

 felt or mesh of actinolite crystals and soapstone, evidently the 

 result of the alteration of some other rock of igneous origin. 

 This kind of soapstone as it is called, is frequently studded with 

 garnets sometimes half an inch or more in diameter. The rock 

 is split out or sawed out into thin slabs which are used as head- 

 stones, hearthstones, and the like. The garnet bearing variety 

 is mottled in a not unpleasing manner with these crystals. An- 

 other kind of soapstone is of a grayish brown color and is free 

 from garnets, and has been used in the past by the Indians or 

 former inhabitants of the state in the construction of utensils 

 of various kinds, such as bowls, pots, jars, etc. Fragments of 



