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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. 127 of about 100 feet. For a distance of about 10 miles below the falls the river flows in a series of cascades through a narrow gorge, whose sides are from 500 to nearly 2,000 feet high, the walls being cut do\,. through the eroded Linville quartzites into the granite below. (See PI. LXXII.) In the first 6 miles below the falls the descent averages 208 feet to the mile, and the total descent from the head of the falls to the lower end of the gorge, a distance of about 10 miles, is 1,800 feet, as determined by a line of levels. Along the upper 6 or 7 miles of this distance the bottom of the gorge is scarcely wider than the stream. The total fall of the stream from its source in Linville Gap to its mouth is about 3,030 feet in a distance of about 36£ miles, the average fall per mile being about 83 feet. The Watauga River also rises near Linville Gap, and flows first in a northeasterly and then in a northwesterly direction, its length from its source to Butler, Tenn., where it leaves the mountainous region, being about 33 miles. The total fall in this distance is about 2,000 feet, and the average slope, therefore, about 61 feet per mile. Of this 2,000 feet, between 900 and 1,000 feet are found in the first 6 miles, where the stream rushes down the slopes of Grandfather Mountain. As is the case with most of the other streams rising on the western slope and flowing westward across the elevated plateau, this stream has its channel for a part of its course in a rather broad and smooth valley before entering the steep and rocky gorge of its middle course. Here it cuts its way through the Unaka mountains in a deep canyon, about 8 miles in length, where the fall averages about 65 feet per mile, but is very much greater at numerous places, the channel being extremely rough and broken. The depth of the gorge through the Unakas is nearly 2,000 feet, but the walls slope down much more gently than those of the Linville just described, though they often show precipitous rock cliffs several hundred feet in height. The Unaka range on the western edge of this plateau, tneDnakaSi unlike the Blue Ridge, has slopes equally steep on both sides, descending often some 4,000 feet from the crest of the mountains to the stream beds. In the upper part of their courses all of the rivers of the Unakas partake of the nature of mountain torrents, with the greatest fall near their sources, and in their lower courses they flow in valleys where there has been much clearing, the amount
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).