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volunteer assistants during this time; the two whose contributions are to be found in the survey reports being Professor W. C. Stubbs, who made a number of chemical analyses, besides taking part in the field work, and Mr. T. H. Aldrich, who prepared a valuable sketch of the early history of coal mining operations in Alabama, published in the report for 1875.
Publications.—During this period of ten years there were published four annual reports, viz., for 1873, 1874, 1875, and 1876, and three biennial reports, viz., for 1877-8, 1879-80, and 1881-2.
With the exception of the Agricultural report of 1881-2, these were of the nature of preliminary or reconnoissance reports, and they deal chiefly with the economic features of the state. The report for 1873 was a mere statement of the plan of the work proposed. That of 1874 is concerned with the crystalline region, and particularly with the copper-bearing strata. At the time when the examinations were made there, the whole section was greatly interested in the subject of copper, just as now it is interested in gold. A part of the next report, 1875, treated of the same subject, but the greater part of it was devoted to the examination and classification of the Valley formations, of Jones' Valley and the great Coosa Valley region. Professor Tuomey recognized the occurrence in these valleys of the Silurian, Devonian, and Subcarboniferous formations, without undertaking the subdivision of the same, except in the case of the Clinton and Trenton. During the summer of 1875, it was possible for the writer to establish the practical identity of these formations with what had already been so clearly described for Tennessee by Professor Safford, and he established the fact of the existence in Alabama of the Ocoee, Chilhowee, Knox Sandstone, Shale and Dolomite, the Lower and Upper Subcarboniferous with their respective minor divisions. The report for 1875 contained also the sketch of the early history of Coal Mining in Alabama, to which reference has already been made above, and there were also presented the records of the borings by diamond drill in the different parts of the Warrior Field together with an attempt at correlating the same. The report holds also many details of the