Warrior coal field of northern Alabama. — Frazer. 307 
rapidly to the southwest from Tennessee to the gulf of Mexico 
than the drainage of the surface, and in consequence the further 
northeastward we go along the lines of these axes from the gulf 
to the Tennessee river the older do the strata covering the surface 
become. The greater part of the area referred to from Tuscaloosa 
to the vicinity of the Tennessee river in a northeast line is formed 
by the Carboniferous formations, — -indeed by the Coal Measures 
which form their chief value. Therefore it may be said that along 
this imaginary axis in a northeasterly direction the geological 
"horizon" becomes lower and lower until at some six or seven miles 
below the town of Cullman the botton of the Coal Measures is 
reached and no coal belonging to the Coal Measures proper can be 
expected. It is quite true that there are other deposits of coal 
below the true Coal Measures which are of considerable value and 
WftrWor Coal f t e.tct ~T opossutn Valte'L'l 
extent so near as the state of Tennessee, but the most careful and 
patient search on the part of the State geological survey and of 
private geologists and prospectors has led to the well founded be- 
lief that these beds of coal become so thin towards the south that 
they cannot be mined with profit south of the Tennessee river. 
From this general explanation of the geological structure of the 
country, viz: that along the axes Of the anticlinals and synclinals 
descending towards the sea the age of the strata covering the sur- 
face becomes more recent, it will follow also that the same must be 
true in proceeding in a direction oblique to the anticlinal valleys, 
for we then mount the synclinal elevations of which the strata have 
been preserved. We should therefore find the most recent strata on 
the top of the lines of hills, and the oldest in the bottoms of the val- 
leys; this is the case, and the amount of the change depends upon 
the width of these elevations; for having arrived at the median 
line of one of them we thereupon commence to descend. Those 
changes of "horizon" laterally are therefore li mi led in amount, and 
recur in similar succession as one traverses the separate spurs' or 
fingers through which the Appalachian mountain system dies down 
beneath the surface; in Alabama. 
The more detailed references which follow will serve to show on 
