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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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  • THE HYDROGRAPHY OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS. PHYSIOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF THE REGION. The Southern Appalachian Mountains, located in the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, stand out from and above the surrounding country as an elevated physiographic unit. They rise above the Piedmont Plateau, which borders them on the east and south, and above the valley of East Tennessee, which lies on their western flanks, to a height of from 2,000 to nearly 6,000 feet above sea level. This is preeminently a region of mountains. (See PI. IV.) a wen watered r J & v ' region. The slopes are mostly covered with deep soil, which is kept in an open, porous condition by the humus that enters into its composition and is spread over the surface, and which is held in place by the myriads of roots of trees and shrubs and grasses growing upon it. (See PI. LXIX a.) In this region the raindrops are battered to pieces by the twigs and leaves and the water is caught by the grasses, shrubs, and ferns below and soaks through the covering humus into the soil and rock fissures underneath. (See PI. LXIX b.) The portion that is neither used by the vegetation nor evaporated from the surface emerges about the mountain slopes weeks or months after its fall in countless springs that feed with striking regularity the many brooks, creeks, and rivers which thus have their sources here. These conditions combine to make this one of the best watered regions on the continent. This region embraces an irregular, mountainous tableland, lying between the steep and well-defined escarpment of the Blue Ridge on the southeast and the less rugged, but higher and more massive Unaka chain on the northwest. Numerous cross ridges separated by narrow valleys and river gorges connect these two ranges or extend out between them. The region, taken as a whole, has an average elevation of more than 2,500 feet, but there are many peaks that rise to about 5,000 feet, and a considerable 125
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).