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. 117 From season to season the rivers vary in flow. Their in r?vers.e° least volume is in the early fall, when they have been reduced by the droughts and heat of summer. Only the smallest branches are ever entirely dried, however, and the severest droughts fail to stop any considerable stream. The greatest volumes are attained in the spring, when the snows melt rapidly and the winter's accumulation of water is leaving the soil. The freshets are not limited altogether to the spring, however; a cloud-burst, for example, may swell a lesser stream tenfold, or a hard rain of four or five days may flood even the largest river. In the upper courses of the streams, where the grades are highest, floods produce exceedingly swift currents, which are able 8pecd of flow- to destroy obstructions and barriers which at ordinary stages would seem insurmountable. The rapid delivery of the waters from the stream heads make a sudden concentration where the branches have united and the grades are less, causing deep water and overflow. Thus, four days of hard rain recently raised Catawba River 30 feet and overflowed miles of bottom lands. The power of the upper and steeper streams at such times is almost incredible; bowlders tons in weight become mere playthings. On the lower reaches in deeper waters and slackened currents no fragments larger than cobblestones are moved, but wholesale changes in the shapes of the bottom lands are often accomplished. The same steep grades which cause the rapid floods are equally effective when the rains have ceased, so that the waters subside about as quickly as they rise. Aside from these temporary changes in volume the flow of the rivers is very steady, dependent as it is upon the discharge of countless springs and the seepage of waters from the soils. CLIMATIC FEATURES IN THE MOUNTAINS. The region covered by this mountain mass possesses a Temperature, climate which differs greatly from that of the surrounding regions. This is manifest first in lower temperatures and is due directly to the greater altitudes. The peaks, of course, are colder than the intermountain valleys, and both are colder than the adjoining G.eat Valley or the Piedmont Plateau. The differences in temperature are greater in summer than in winter, so that the climate of the higher portions is more equable than that of the valleys.
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).