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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  • SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. 21 hence nearer to the Blue Ridge than to the Unakas. (PI. IX.) As a rule, they vary in width from a few hundred feet to as many yards. Some of the most notable of these valleys, reaching a width of 2 to 5 miles in places, are those on New River in Virginia, on the French Broad above Asheville, on the Tennessee River in southwestern North Carolina, and about the headwaters of the Coosa and other rivers in Georgia. As these streams approach and cut through the mountain borders of this region they run in deep gorges, the full width of which is often occupied by the streams. (See PI. XXIX.) The slopes of these mountains vary considerably in their steepness. The northwestern slopes of the Blue Ridge are usually gentle and in many places cleared. The southeastern slopes are generally much steeper and usually forest covered. In a few places these southeastern slopes are rocky and precipitous. Especially is this the case along the South Carolina border, as seen in Cresars Head, Whiteside, and Table Rock mountains (see Pis. X, XI, and XLV), where the bare rock walls rise 600 to 1,000. steeps** ?* 11 ' the mountain feet in height. The slopes of the Unakas, like those of slopes. many of the interior ridges, are fairly steep on both sides, ranging generally from 20 to 50 degrees. About the interior ridges there is still greater variation. Some of the rocky faces are precipitous, while elsewhere the slopes are gentle, ranging from 5 to 20 degrees. But taking the mountains and the valleys together, the land surface with a slope of less than 10 degrees is not more than 10 per cent of the whole. THE FORESTS. It is the forest covering of these great mountain slopes— a covering that should never be removed—about which interest centers in the present investigation. The results of this examination during the past two years are given at length in a paper published as Appendix A (p. 41). They are stated separately for each of the larger river suufoi^the"^ basins, following a somewhat general discussion of theamination- forest conditions in the region as they exist to-day and of how the forests may be economically protected and improved under Government control. These forests have been carefully studied and classified, and over much the larger portion of the area their density and distribution have been indicated on the excellent topographic maps furnished for this purpose by the Depart- Forest maps-
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).