8 WORKING PLAN, FOREST LANDS IN ALABAMA. 
becomes transfor ned into a range of high hills, rising 300 or 400 feet 
above the genera level of the country and with an actual elevation 
above sea level at che highest point, York Mountain, of over 900 feet. 
(See Pl. I, fig. 1.; To the southwest of York Mountain is a range of 
hills called the Reedy Mountains. 
South of this divide there is a broad strip of shghtly rolling country— 
in some places almost level—and then another range of hills, con- 
siderably higher, steeper, and rougher than the last, which extend 
in a southwest to westerly direction across the southern part of the 
tract from section 12 to section 19 of township 22 north, range 17 east. 
The point of highest altitude, 1,150 feet, is Weogufka Mountain, on 
the eastern edge of section 15. This range of hills, although it is one 
of the highest in the county, does not form a divide. Weogufka., 
Creek, the largest stream on the tract, and Finnegotchkee Creek, its 
main tributary from the north, force their way directly through the 
steepest and most elevated part of it. 
The lower valleys of the other large creeks on the tract and the upper 
part of that of the Finnegotchkee are broad and level, but where the 
latter and Weogufka Creek cut through the hills they have each formed 
a deep, narrow, steep-sided gorge, containing practically no level land. 
(See Pld. fie: 22.) 
SOIL. 
The formation of the region is paleozoic, and the different degrees 
with which the various crystalline rocks resist erosion give rise to a 
wide variation in the mechanical and chemical properties of the soil. 
This is exemplified in the sterile, sandy soils formed fron the siliceous 
slates and quartzites of the higher elevations and the fertile, stratified 
clay soils from gneissic rocks and clayey slates of the lower ones. 
THE FOREST. 
Although the Public Land Survey of Coosa County was made over 
sixty years ago and the settlement of the country was begun even 
earlier, yet of the 35,984 acres under consideration 88.3 per cent, or 
31,774 acres, still remain under forest, which, with a few small excep- 
tions, remained untouched by the ax until the advent of the lumber 
company. ; 
Past LUMBERING. 
When the survey of tne Coosa County tract was made by the Forest 
Service the company had clean cut all of section 6, and practically all 
of sections 7 and 8 in township 24 north, range 18 east, and was 
engaged in cutting to a diameter of 15 inches breasthigh in section 18 
of township 24 north, range 18 east, and in sections 11, 12, 18, and 14 
of township 24 north, range 17 east. Its logging camp was located in 
