June 24, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
971 
Tuscaloosa runs through a famous cotton coun¬ 
try, it seems to have no cotton landings on it, 
probably because navigation on it has hitherto 
been almost impossible in the fall, when the 
cotton is being shipped, on account of low water. 
Then, too, the navigable part of the Warrior has 
railroads within ten miles of it the whole dis¬ 
tance, while on that part of the Tombigbee, 
where we were now, there was no regular rail¬ 
road within twenty miles. The steamboats which 
passed us from now on looked much like those 
on the lower Mississippi. 
We stopped about two hours at Wood’s Bluff, 
a noted fossil locality, where the leading con- 
mirror, and at the same time shuts off most of 
the breeze. We indeed found it a warm place, 
but not uncomfortably so, on account of the late¬ 
ness of the season. 
Later in the day we got several glimpses of 
the “mountains” of Southwestern Alabama, which 
are sandstone ridges rising 200 feet or more 
above the river and giving a pleasing diversity 
to the landscape. The same ridges extend north¬ 
westward past Meridian, Miss., where they can 
be seen very plainly from any of the railroads 
passing through that city, most of which have 
to wind about considerably. 
Shortly before sunset, after a run of forty- 
northern slopes of the mountains were densely 
clothed with virgin hardwood forest in which 
two species of magnolia and several rare ferns 
were prominent. The plowshare which was sus¬ 
pended from a corner of the pilot house to serve 
as a bell had to be tapped a good many times 
to call us all in from this beautiful place. 
At noon we reached Lock 1, 251 miles from 
Tuscaloosa and no from Mobile, where one of 
the sons of the Nestor of our party, as well as 
one or two other young men from Tuscaloosa, 
were employed. They had heard that we were 
coming, and of course gave us a cordial recep¬ 
tion. Among other things we were shown a 
chologist of the party gave us each a paper bag 
with instructions to collect everything in sight, 
especially the little shells a fraction of an inch 
in length, for those were the least known. The 
lowest few feet of the bluff are now permanently 
submerged by water backed up from Lock 1, 
thirty-nine miles below, which of course the geo¬ 
logists regretted very much, but the part above 
the water is a perfect mass of beautifully pre¬ 
served and easily detached shells. When the 
spoils were counted that night, about 150 species 
from that locality were listed, a few of them 
perhaps new to science. 
According to our leader, Wood’s Bluff is one 
of the hottest places in the world, and he had 
poured out many a gallon of sweat there in 
former years. It forms almost a semi-circle, 
concave toward the south, and focuses the rays 
of the mid-day sun something like a concave 
BRIDGE AND POOL AT MILFORD, PA. 
Photograph by H. B. March. 
three miles, we stopped at Coffeeville landing. 
Our water bottles were nearly empty again, but 
neither artesian water nor rain water was to be 
had here, so we filled them from a small clear 
rivulet near by despite the prejudice of some 
members of the party against branch water. 
Friday we wanted to make up some of the 
time lost at the shoals, so we got under way 
at 6:30. At that hour it was a little too chilly 
to be comfortable on deck and too foggy for 
us to do justice to the scenery, but the sun soon 
came out bright and warm as usual. Eight miles 
below Coffeeville we stopped at Hatchetigbee 
Bluff, the abrupt end of one of the “mountains” 
just mentioned, which rises about 150 feet above 
the river. The view of the river from the top 
of this bluff reminded one very much of that 
of the Tennessee River from Lookout Moun¬ 
tain near Chattanooga on a small scale, and the 
curiosity in the shape of an artesian well whose 
water was both too hot and too briny to drink, 
and emitted gas besides in sufficient quantity 
so that it could be ignited at the top of the 
eight-inch pipe where the water came out. No 
use had yet been found for the unexpected pro¬ 
ducts of this well, and it was all going to waste. 
For a distance of several miles around Hatche¬ 
tigbee, where the strata, which are elsewhere 
nearly level, are folded into an anticline, there 
is said to be considerable salt in the water of 
deep wells and springs, and this formed the 
basis of an important industry during the Civil 
War, when the South was almost shut off from 
foreign commerce. 
The tide is said to come up to Lock 1 when 
the river is very low, but we did not stop there 
long enough to verify this. About two miles be¬ 
low this last lock we came to the site of historic 
