Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Report of the Secretary of Agriculture in relation to the forests, rivers, and mountains of the southern Appalachian region

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  • 18 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. ville, from whicb point it extends southwestward across portions of Georgia and Alabama. Into and through this valley drains the larger portion of the water which leaves the mountain region. Along the upper reaches of these streams are numerous valuable water powers, and along their lower courses through the valley are some of the finest farming lands in Tennessee. To the west of this valley lie the southern remnants of the Allegheny Mountains and the better defined Cumberland Plateau. Between this great valley on the west and the Piedmont Plateau on the east and south are the Southern Appalachian Mountains, with which this report has especially to deal. THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS. The accompanying maps (Pis. IV and XII), show that the Blue Ridge, as it crosses Virginia southward, increases and holds its prominence and its individuality. As it passes into North Carolina it enlarges both vertically and laterally, widening out into a complex zone or belt of mountains, with a maximum width of about 70 miles in western North Carolina and east Tennessee, and contracting again toward its southern end. These mountains show none of the regularity exhibited by the Northern Appalachians, but, on the other hand, are composed of massive ranges and cross ridges and more or less isolated mountains, often with rounded, dome-like tops (see PI. VIII), in striking contrast with the sharp, regular, parallel, rocky ridges of the more northern Alleghenies. RiTuI andB1the Along the southeastern margin of this southern moun unaka Moun-tain belt is the Blue Ridge proper, which, as it crosses North Carolina, is a fairly wrell-defined mountain range, standing more than 3,000 feet above the sea and rising in four peaks to more than 5,000 feet, and in one—the Grandfather—to practically 6,000 feet. Bordering this region on the northwest is a mountain range—the Unakas— somewhat higher, and in its southern portion more massive, but less continuous, than the Blue Ridge; less continuous for the reason that its course is cut across by half a dozen rivers, which rise on the Blue Ridge on the east, flow across this intervening mountain region, and cut through the Unakas in wild, deep gorges. (See PI. V.) Between those river gorges the segments of the Unakas are known by such local names as the Iron Mountains, Bald Mountains, and Great Smoky mountains. In southern
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).