300 The American Geologist. May, isoi 
Jamison 709.26 
Montgomery 161.15 
BirmAngham 620.00 
Boyle's (3 miles north of last) 524.00 
Newcastle 514.00 
Locust Warrior Bridge 417.25 
Warrior Station '. 548.80 
Reid's Station 5 ( .)1.72 
Blount Springs 435.00 
Mulberry Warrior Bridge 431.00 
Banceville 540.00 
Phelan 693.00 
fill I nam 802.00 
Sand Mountain 918.65 
Willites 610.00 
Hart sell's 666.50 
Flint 575.00 
Decatur 577.00 
The last is a short distance north of any portion of the prop- 
erty in question, and on the Tennessee river. 
Birmingham Mineral Railroad 
Gurley Creek 638.0 
Gurley's Bridge 644.0 
Palmer's 723.0 
Oneonta 859. 
The significance of the above detached data is that the state of 
Alabama, more especially the northern half of it, is a strongty 
accidented plane, sloping southwest, which forms a transition 
from the mountainous country of the Appalachian chain, entering 
Alabama from the north and east to the low country of the gulf bor- 
der. It is in this region that the greatest structural feature of the 
eastern part of the North American continent disappears from 
view by plunging below the surface. This fact is a key to the 
proper understanding of its geology as well as of its topography. 
The hills in this country are synclinals made up of elevated concen- 
tric troughs of different strata lying one within the other, and the 
valleys are broken anticlinals, with sides sloping steeply towards 
the median line of the valley and the rocks dipping on each side 
inward towards the interior of the hills. A rough sketch taken 
from a manuscript section map of the Alabama geological survey,* 
kindly lent me by the state geologist, will illustrate this. 
The anticlinal axes of the Appalachian mountains descend more 
* Issu ed as part of the Cahaba coal field after the above, was written 
