6 
Mr. McCalley, who has devoted the greater part of the last 
three or four years to the examination of this and the other 
parts of the State occupied by the rocks of the older forma- 
tions. The woik of Mr. A. M. Gibson in Murphree’s Val- 
ley, has also been of great service as affording the clew to 
certain types of geological structure, as will be seen in the 
body ot the report. 
I have been somewhat ataloss to determine the best way 
of exkibiting the distribution of the surface beds of the 
Tuscaloosa formation in the lower part of the area shown 
on the map. These beds overlie the older formations in 
patches, whose exact outlines could not possibly be deter- 
mined except by instrumental survey, the cost of which 
would have been out of all proportion to the importance of 
the information thus to be gained. It must therefore be 
understood that the map does not pretend to show the exact 
position and shape of all these overlying tracts—and the 
absence of definite dotted outlines is intended to indicate 
this—but only to express the general fact that the Creta- 
ceous beds overlie, and in places completely hide from view, 
the older geological formations. Where it has been possi- 
ble to ascertain with certainty, or with a high degree of 
probability, the distribution of these underlying formations 
in spite of the covering of Cretaceous, as is easily the case 
with the Coal Measures, we have so marked it ; but in the 
valley, where several geological formations occur in narrow 
belts, it has often been quite impossible to trace the contin- 
uity of these belts, and thus to determine the structure, 
hence the unsatisfactory condition of the lower part of the 
map. Intime, and with more numerous observations, we 
shall probably be able to bring order out of this present 
confusion. 
Of other work completed or in progress in tais part of the 
State, the following statement will not be here out of place. 
Mr. McCalley has been engaged for several years upon 
the examination of the coal of the Plateau region of the 
State, and of the valleys along which the older geological 
formations of the State are exposed. 
The greater part of this matter is already written up and 
ready for the printers, and all of it will be ready before the 
