308 The American Geologist. May, i89i 
what this view of the writer is based, but at present it is the aim to 
condense, as far as possible, the results. 
The "Warrior coal field " is a name given to the productive Coal 
Measures covering a large area in the northern part of the state of 
Alabama, and includes at least four and perhaps more principal 
beds which in descending order are the "Newcastle, " the "Jeffer- 
son," the "Black Creek," and the "Warrior" seams. Inasmuch 
as the latter is the lowest, it must be found underneath the out- 
crops of any of the others, but the converse is, of course, not true; 
and while from its greater extent it is quite proper that its name 
should be given to the whole field, one must guard against the error 
of supposing that wherever this bed occurs the other and higher 
beds will also be found. Some erroneous estimates have been due 
to this confusion of terms. 
A digest of the general section of the Coal Measures in Jefferson 
county, made with great care and skill by Mr. McCalley, the assist- 
ant State geologist, from his personal observations, aided by the 
researches of Mr. T. H. Aldrich and Mr. Howard Douglas, is here 
appended, because it gives in elaborate detail all the strata which 
are found in this part of the state, from the Pratt seam down to 
the base of the lower conglomerate. 
It furnishes a complete inventory of all the valuable minerals 
within the Coal Measures north of the latitude of Birmingham and 
explains why so much of the coal deposits of Alabama is com- 
mercially valueless on account of the thinness of the beds and their 
admixture with slate. It is necessarily introduced here for refer- 
ence in cases when the special coal development of a particular 
region is referred to (pp. 309 and 310). 
The Hoene Warrior and Jefferson Coal company own, amongst 
other properties, about 250 acres of coal lands near the town of 
Warrior, known as the Alabama mines, and 2,704 acres in all, 
including the Brake and Jefferson mines. With the exception of 
a reported coal seam in Mr. Paris' well in the S. W. £ of Sec. 14 
W., there are no outcrops of coal known hereabouts or in this 
country north and west of the ravines near Warrior station on the 
Soutli and North Alabama railroad, in which are the mines of the 
Hoene Warrior and Jefferson Coal company, and the Pierce's 
Warrior Coal and Mining company, according to the State report. 
The Alabama coal mines are situated about a mile north by west 
from the town of Warrior, in a deep valley between steep hills 
