ON THE TENNESSEE RIVER, NORTH CAROLINA 

 Pines that sprung up in this badly gullied pasture were cut out. They would have checked the wash 



Under natural forested conditions 

 streams in steep-sloped mountain basins 

 receive comparatively little eroded mate- 

 rial from their slopes and expend much 

 of their energy in eroding their beds and 

 so soon produce good deep channels that 

 are efficient agents for the rapid removal 

 of flood waters. Such deep stream 

 channels may be seen in any well for- 

 ested region. When the steep slopes 

 have been denuded of their timber, how- 

 ever, they are rapidly attacked by ero- 

 sion and the soil and disintegrated rock 

 are swept into the stream channels in 

 such great quantities as to overload and 

 choke the streams and soon fill up their 

 deep channels and even cover up their 

 former flood surface. With their deep 

 channels obliterated, the streams can no 

 longer remove rainfall efficiently and 

 rapidly and it consequently accumulates 

 and rises to greater heights than for- 

 merly. Futhermore, many a small rain 



that, with the former deep channel well 

 fitted for the rapid removal of flood 

 waters, would have failed to make a 

 bank- full stage, now overfills the greatly 

 shallowed channel and spreads as a 

 flood over the adjacent lands, so that 

 there can be no doubt that in the denuded 

 and eroded mountain basins of the size 

 of the French Broad or the Nolichucky, 

 for instance — each of which are good 

 sized rivers — floods are to-day both 

 higher and more frequent than they for- 

 merly were under natural forested con- 

 ditions. 



The problem of whether floods have 

 increased in height and violence in re- 

 cent years may be approached from 

 another and in many respects a more 

 certain and satisfactory viewpoint than 

 either that just given or that of the 

 meteorologist dependent on his gage 

 readings. This third viewpoint is that 

 of the geologist and physiographer, and 



223 



