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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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  • .54 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. the deep, cool hollows. On the drier slopes, and especially on the south sides, oak and chestnut form the greater part of the timber, with some black and yellow pine on the ridges. The timber in the hollows is more varied and the stand is heavier, poplar, birch, linn, and buckeye being associated with the oak and chestnut. The finest and largest bodies of spruce in the Southern Appalachians occur here, along the crest of the ridge and the north slope of both the Cataloochee and Smoky mountains. There are about 20,000 acres of spruce and nearly as much hemlock. There is no spruce on the Smoky Mountains southwest of Silers Meadow. The forests of the north slope of the Smoky Mountains have been much culled and injured by burning and pasturage. There is yet a great deal of fine timber, however. Fires have also done much injury on the south slope, especially to hard woods, and the growth is often very open on account of the suppression of young trees by burning for a great number of years. The valleys of Cataloochee and Big Creeks are heavily timbered, though the3r have been culled to some extent, and the ridges have often been burned. A railroad is now being built up Big Pigeon River in order to exploit the timber on these streams. A railroad is also under construction up Oconalufty River to remove a part of the timber from the east prong of that stream. FORESTS OF THE SOUTHERN END OF THE APPALACHIANS. Topography. South of the Nantahala cross ridge the Appalachian Mountains no longer consist of two well-defined parallel ranges with prominent cross ridges, but break up into a number of small, low mountains, or small ridges, with broad, alluvial valleys or low hills between them, or in some places there are a series of low ridges which are separated by deep, narrow, gorge-like valleys. In northwestern Georgia their identity is entirely lost, and they pass into the hills of the Piedmont Plateau. While only a few of these mountains have an altitude of more than 4,500 feet, the topography is rough, as the stream level is much lower than it is further northeastward, not being more than 1,000 feet. The resisting character of the rock—quartzite, sandstones, and slates— which forms these mountains, which have eroded into sharp-pointed ridges with deep, narrow intervening val-
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).