E. A. Smith — Remarks on a paper of 0. Meyer. 273 



of Lyell's statement that at the bluff the upper part of the 

 limestone had been cut off by erosion. 



2. At Gosport. a few miles below Claiborne, there is an ex- 

 posure very similar to that at Claiborne Bluff, and the White 

 limestone appears on the hills a short distance from the river 

 just as it was when Sir Charles Lyell observed it many years 

 ago, and at a higher level than the Claiborne sands — as Lyell 

 said it was. 



3. At Rattlesnake Bluff, a few miles below Gosport, we have 

 the Claiborne ferruginous sands with their overlying Scutella 

 bed — about 18 feet above the water level. Above the Scutella 

 bed occur some 15 feet or more of the White limestone. 



4. At the mouth of Cedar Creek, several miles farther down 

 the river, the Scutella bed is only about three or four feet 

 above the water level with a few feet of the White limestone 

 over it. 



In Meyer's section of Claiborne — the ferruginous fossilifer- 

 ous sands are 64 feet above the river level ; at Rattlesnake 

 Bluff they are 18 feet above, and at the mouth of Cedar Creek, 

 just below the water level. These observations establish the 

 fact of a southerly dip of the strata. 



Mr. Meyer questions the fact of such dip, but there is no 

 doubt about it, as may be seen below in 5. C. S. Hale, in this 

 Journal, II, vol. vi, No. 18, Nov., 1848, in an article on the 

 Geology of South Alabama, not quoted by Meyer, likewise 

 demonstrates the fact of the southerly dip of these strata. He 

 also distinctly says that the White limestone overlies the 

 Claiborne ferruginous sands, and brings forward observations 

 of his own to prove it. 



5. If we go down the river from the mouth of Cedar Creek, 

 during a low stage of water, we can have the direct evidence 

 of superposition, of the relative places of the Claiborne sands 

 and the White limestone, for the few feet of this latter rock 

 above the Scutella bed, mentioned as forming the upper part 

 of the bank at the mouth of Cedar Creek, can be followed down 

 the river till they sink below the water level, but before one of 

 these beds sinks out of sight another appears above it, and the 

 succession of these low bluffs (hardly ever more than 10 to 15 

 feet high) is so nearly continuous, that practically all of the 

 strata intervening between the Scutella bed at Cedar Creek, 

 and the Orbitoidal limestone at Marshall's Landing, may be 

 seen. These strata are mostly argillaceous limestones, glauco- 

 nitic in places. At Marshall's Landing, this argillaceous lime- 

 stone is distinctly overlaid by 10 feet or more of limestone 

 filled with Orbitoides Mantelli. There is no trace of faulting or 

 disturbance along this part of the river, and the uniform dip 

 of the strata and their succession are unmistakable. 



