CAHABA COAL FIELD: BLOCTON BASIN. 113 
ones in the basin are the Woodstock and Blocton road, the 
Blocton and Pratt’s Ferry road, (this is what the settlers 
designate as the new cut,) the Blocton and Centreville road, 
the Blocton and Gurnee road, the Woodstock and Centre- 
ville road, the Tuscaloosa and Pratt’s Ferry road, Booth- 
town and Greenpond road, Blocton and Shades Creek 
church or Helena road, and the Scottsville and River Bend 
road. 
The railroads in this basin are the Cahaba Coal Mining 
Company’s Railroad, connecting their Blocton mines with 
the Alabama Great Southern Railroad at Woodstock, and 
with the Blue Creek extension of the Birmingham Mineral 
Railroad at the Blocton Junction depot near Woodstock. 
There is another railroad receutly completed that enters 
the basin from the east side, coming from Montevallo to 
Gurnee, and from Gurnee to Blocton, constructed by the 
Brierfield, Blocton and Birmingham Railroad Company 
over the Gurnee and Blocton portion of which the Birm- 
ingham Mineral Company have a lease or right to run their 
trains to Blocton, from their Helena and Gurnee branch. 
This gives the Blocton basin connection with the Alabama 
Great Southern Railroad, the Birmingham Mineral system, 
and Louisville and Nashville Company’s main line, and the 
East Tennessee, Virginia aud Georgia main line by means 
of the Selma, Rome and Dalton Division, which are three 
of the most important mineral railroads in the State. 
The Blocton basin is eighteen miles in length by an aver- 
age width of five and a quarter miles. Its surface area is 
ninety-four and a half square miles, and it contains, in 
seams of workable coal of two feet and upwards in thick- 
ness, and within 3,800 feet of vertical depth, 567,000,000 of 
tons (2,000 pounds.) I have made no allowance in this 
computation for loss in pillars or waste in mining. 
The western edge of the basin is disturbed by three nar- 
row faults or fractures of the measures; they do not make 
much showing on the surface, but they cause the measures 
in their vicinity to be irregular, and will not be considered 
worth working while there is such a vast area of almost 
level or flat measures in the basin proper, to the east of 
them, and containing the same seams. 
