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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. 33 taries of the Tennessee with resulting devastation, which, when added to that on the Catawba, sums up to more than $7,000,000 damage. Add to this the damages from floods on other streams rising in different parts of this region during the spring and summer, and the total this year approximates $10,000,000. (See Pis. XXXV and XXXVI.) Such has been the story, on a smaller scale, of other similar but less violent floods about the sources of these mountain-born rivers during the past few years. If we are to continue the destruction of these mountain forests, this story will have to be repeated in successively larger editions in the future. THE CI.IMATE OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS. As shown in the accompanying paper by Professor Henry, of the Weather Bureau (p. 143), the climate of the Southern Appalachian region possesses distinctive features of its own, although it partakes somewhat of the main features of the climatic zones both to the west and to the east. Its distinctive features, due to higher altitudes, are a lower temperature, both summer and winter, a drier atmosphere, and at the same time a greater rainfall and snowfall, and higher wind velocity. There are of course local variations in the climatic conditions of the region, owing to its extremely varied topography, but the limited number of stations where observations have been made in this region makes it impossible to discuss these local variations at the present time. It is in temperature that we might expect the greatest in^n™region not variations, but, unfortunately, with the exception of a few extreme- months' observation on Mount Mitchell (elevation 6,711 feet), no observations are available at elevations greater than 4,000 feet. The highest temperature observed on Mount Mitchell during May, June, July, and August in 1873 was 72° in July; the lowest, 41° in June. At Highlands, N. C. (elevation 3,817 feet), the mean temperature of the summer is given by the Weather Bureau records as 65.7°, and the mean winter temperature as 35.4°. The extremes during a period of eight years (1893 to 1900) were 19° below zero in February and 86° above zero in June. The rainfall along the southern slopes of the Blue Pudge ies^n X eS' is the heaviest in the United States, with the exception of em states. that on the northern Pacific coast, ranging from 60 inches *S. Doc. 84 3
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