12 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA. 
Louisville and Cincinnati. Connected with this main line - 
is the Birmingham Mineral Railroad, from Helena to Gur- 
nee. This Company have a right or lease to run on the 
railroad from Gurnee to Blocton. 
Farther to the southwest is the Brierfield, Blocton, and 
Birmingham railroad ; this road runs from a point about a 
mile southwest of Montevallo to Gurnee and Blocton, the 
main line continuing on from Gurnee to Bessemer, thence 
over the Alabama Great Southern to Birmingham. 
The Cahaba Coal Mining Company have a railroad from 
Woodstock to their various mines at Blocton; the main 
line is about nine miles in length; their branches to the 
different mines and side tracks increase their railroad mile-. 
age to about eighteen or twenty miies. 
The Briarfield Coal and: Iron Company have a branch 
railroad running from their coal mines at Peter’s Mines, to 
the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad at 
Brierfield ; this road has a length of two or three miles. 
The Montevallo Coal and Transportation Company have 
a branch railroad running from Aldrich on the Brierfield, 
Blocton, and Birmingham Railroad to their slope on the 
Montevallo seam. 
The Eureka Company have a branch railroad of about two 
and a half miles in length from their slope in the Helena 
seam, to the Louisville and Nashville Company’s main line 
at Helena. 
The DeBardeleben Coal and Iron Company have a branch 
railroad from their No. 3 slope above Henryellen to the 
Columbus and Western Railroad. The above railroads are 
all completed and in running order, with the exception of 
the DeBardeleben Coal and Iron Company’s branch and the 
Brierfield, Blocton.and Birmingham line from Gurnee to 
Bessemer; this is all let out under contract to Aldrich, 
Worthington and Company, and they are pushing the work 
forward with five hundred to ten hundred hands. 
The above railroads are but a small fraction of what prob- 
ably will be constructed in this Coal Field in the future ; it 
will require at least ten times their amount in mileage, to 
bring the Cahaba Coal Field up to its full working capacity. 
The Cahaba Coal Field is sixty-eight miles in length by 
