418 Proceedings of the Geological Society. 



It is to be hoped that after this manner the relations of rocks to 

 their organic and inorganic elements may find a more ready and 

 general expression, and that investigations which are not to the pur- 

 pose, and collision with existing theories so far as they relate merely 

 to forms of expression may be avoided, and the principles involved 

 be soon distinctly recognised. — From Journal Coal Society. 



D. T. A. 



Notice on the Coal-Fields of Alabama ; being an extract from a 

 Letter to the President from Charles Lyell, Esq., F.R.S., 

 dated Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 15th February, 1846. 



Since my arrival in Alabama I have devoted part of my time to the 

 investigation of the carboniferous rocks, and have obtained informa- 

 tion respecting some coal-fields, the very existence of which in this 

 state was unknown to me in 1844, when I compiled the map of the 

 Geology of the United States, published in my ' Travels.' On my 

 way southwards, I had learnt from several persons in Georgia that 

 the city of Mobile was supplied with bituminous coal, brought down 

 from the Tombecbee River from Tuscaloosa, a navigation of about 400 

 miles. This coal is procured from the neighbourhood of Tuscaloosa, 

 a place situated near the centre of Alabama, and more than a hundred 

 miles further south in a direct line than the southern limit which I 

 had assigned to the Appalachian coal-field, which I supposed to 

 terminate near the great bend of the Tennessee River. 



The fact of coal occurring near Tuscaloosa had been previously 

 mentioned to me by Mr. Conrad, but he was uncertain respecting its 

 .age ; and the circumstance of its occurrence near the Falls of the 

 river, not far from the northern outcrop of the cretaceous strata, 

 together with the fact of its quality being preferred to all other coal 

 for the manufacture of gas at Mobile, made me suspect that it might 

 prove to be of the age of the Richmond coal, which is also bitumi- 

 nous, situated near the Falls of the James River, and which, as 

 Professor W. B. Rogers has pointed out, is newer than the ancient 

 carboniferous series. 



