7 
the end of the winter. The Plateau region includes all that 
part of the Coal Measures in which the coal seams lie high 
upon the mountains, and well above the general drainage of 
the country, and occupies parts or all of the following coun- 
ties: Madison, Jackson, DeKalb, Marshall, Morgan, Blount, 
Etowah. 
The valley region includes the Tennessee valley, the val- 
ley of Blount Springs and immediate valley of the Tennes- 
see river above Guntersville, Murphree’s Valley, Wills’ Val- 
ley, Jones’ and Roups’ Valley, and Cahaba Valley, and the 
great valley of the Coosa, embracing all the region between 
Lookout Mountain and the Coosa Coal Field on the west, 
and the hills of Clay and Cleburne counties on the east. In 
these are exposed the older geological formations, and in 
them occur the beds of red and brown iron ore which have 
played so important a part in the industrial history of the 
State. In my biennial report to the present General Assem- 
bly Ihave spoken more specifically of the several reports 
now ready for the printers upon these districts. 
Some years ago, the United States Geological Survey un- 
dertook, in the interest of the State Survey as well as that 
of the United States, an investigation, the chief object of 
which was to make a carefully measured section of a belt 
about twenty miles wide, extending across the valley region 
of Alabama. After consultation, we selected a line running 
northwest and southeast, near the end of Lookout Mountain 
at Gadsden, as the central line of this section or belt. The 
investigation was to determine accurately within this nar- 
row belt, the thickness of the strata of the several forma- 
tions there occurring, together with the variations in the 
lithological characters of the rocks from place to place, and 
to determine the geological structure. This particular belt 
was selected for the reason thatall the older geological 
formations of the State are exposed here, and the geological 
structure is about as complicated and diversified as it is 
anywhere else. 
The results of this work, which was finished this fall, are 
embodied in a report by Mr. OC. W. Hayes of the U. S. Sur- 
vey, illustrated by a map and several geological sections. 
This report will be published as a document of the State 
