TITLES AND ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS 113 



there are twenty-eight. In 1917 Alabama, with fourteen plants, furnished 66 

 per cent by value of the production of crystalline graphite of the United States. 



The graphite area in Alabama is confined largely to Clay, Coosa, and Chilton 

 counties, in the Piedmont district. The mica schists in which the workable 

 graphite beds occur is separated from the semicrystalline Ocoee phyllite to the 

 west by a green schist of igneous origin and grades into a mica schist on the 

 east with more frequent streaks of granitoid gneiss. The area in which work- 

 able graphite beds occur is approximately sixty miles long and has a maximum 

 width of about five and a half miles. In one locality a cross-section of the 

 field shows twenty workable beds, some of which are over 100 feet in thickness. 



The ore is disseminated in a mica schist and seldom exceeds an average 

 graphite content of 3% per cent. The graphite is of sedimentary origin, though 

 occasional thin veins and enrichments of graphite occur in the stringers of 

 pegmatite or along the borders of the larger pegmatite "horses." 



There are many processes of concentration in the various mills. Both the 

 entirely wet and entirely dry processes are employed. Of the wet methods 

 there are four distinct processes of water flotation and five methods of "oil 

 flotation" — oil and water. 



The chief attention of the graphite companies at the present time is directed 

 toward the standardization of their products and the lowering of the cost of 

 production, both of which are essential to the success of the industry. 



Presented by title in the absence of the author. 



FURTHER EVIDENCE OF THE AGE OF THE CRYSTALLINE AND SEMI- 

 CRYSTALLINE ROCKS IN ALABAMA 



BY W. F. PEOUTY 



{Abstract) 



In 1903 Dr. E. A. Smith showed the presence of certain Carboniferous fossils 

 in Ocoee slate area in Clay County, Alabama. During the past summer the 

 writer further extended this known Carboniferous area to the foot of the Talla- 

 dega Mountain, at Clairmont Springs. In connection with the fossiliferous 

 black slate deposits there is an associated conglomerate which has every ap- 

 pearance of the Millstone grit as it occurs in the coal fields a few miles to the 

 west of this region. This conglomerate is the same as that forming the main 

 ridge of the Talladega Mountain or Blue Ridge in this part of Alabama. 



Directly to the southeast from the known Carboniferous locality in the Ocoee 

 slates there is a narrow belt of metamorphosed green schists which cuts at a 

 sharp angle across the strike of the Carboniferous rock and gives every evi- 

 dence of having been formed later than the unquestioned Corboniferous rock 

 on the west. 



In the crystalline belt southeast from the Carboniferous locality there are 

 well defined belts and several smaller areas of phyllites which have every ap- 

 pearance of the Ocoee to the west. These areas not only carry a conglomerate 

 which is similar to that in the Talladega Mountain and which is by inference 

 Carboniferous, but they also have beds of amorphous graphite. 



The southeastern portion of the crystalline rocks of Alabama is generally 

 supposed to be older than that in the western portion. However, in one locality 

 VIII — Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 30, 1918 



