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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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  • 130 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. mountain region and in the wider valleys along their courses across the lowlands beyond. Bridges, mills, settlements, public roads, dams for developing water power, indeed, everything in the course of such a mountain stream is liable to be swept away by its rapidly increasing force. floodTage3 from During the spring of 1901 this region was visited by the most severe rain storm of its recent history. Many of the streams rose to unprecedented heights, and the flood damages to the farms, bridges, and dwellings on or near practically all of the streams flowing from these southern Appalachian Mountains were enormous. During the summer season later floods added largely to this destruction. Along the valley of the Catawba River in its course across the two Carolinas these flood damages to farms, bridges, highways, buildings, etc., during the high-water season of 1901, aggregated nearly two million dollars. The storm damages during the same season along the tributaries of the James, the Roanoke, the Yadkin, and the Broad, in Virginia and North Carolina, added a million dollars; and those on the tributaries of other streams rising about the Blue Ridge in South Carolina and Georgia add still another million, making four million in all for the streams flowing from the Blue Ridge across the Piedmont Plateau. Add to this the damages along the streams flowing out of the southern Appalachian Mountains to the north, west, and southwest, and we have another and a larger story of destruction: On the New (Kanawha) and other smallei adjacent streams in Virginia and West Virginia $1,000,000 On the Watauga, in North Carolina and Tennessee 2,000,000 On the Nolichucky, in North Carolina and Tennessee.... 1,500,000 On the French Broad and Pigeon, in North Carolina and Tennessee 500,000 On the Tuckasegee, Little Tennessee, and Hiwassee, in North Carolina and Tennessee 500,000 On the tributaries of western Georgia and Alabama streams rising in this region 500,000 This aggregate of $10,000,000 tells a story of destruction never before equaled in this region. Bridges were swept away by the score; houses by the hundred; thousands of miles of public roads were washed away almost beyond the possibility of repair. (See PI. LXXVI.) The soil in the narrow, irregular, fringing valley lands in the mountain region was in many cases partially and in other cases completely washed away. In the lowlands beyond,
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