Stevenson.] ^^ [March 18, 



the west line of Wythe county, is thought to be available for a railroad 

 liae. Water-gaps through Little Walker are numerous, but with one ex- 

 ception they have been made by streams rising in the valley between the 

 mountains or on the southerly slope of Big Walker. New river alone has 

 made a continuous gap through both ridges. The ruggedness of Big 

 Walker is due partly to the refractory nature of the Medina which forms 

 its body, but more to the steep dip, which makes the mountain narrow 

 and limits the effectiveness of erosion. The rocks of Little Walker are 

 more easily affected by atmospheric agencies, and for the most part they 

 have a much gentler dip. 



The Clinch Mountain gi'oup, so conspicuous in the counties previously 

 described, comes to an end in Giles county under the influence of two 

 anticlinals and of extensive erosion on botli sides of New river. The 

 Medina outcrop, doubling over the anticlinals, forms Pearls and Sugar 

 Camp mountains, while the Brushy mountain of Chemung and Vesper- 

 tine disappears very near the line of Bland and Giles counties. But be- 

 yond New river the anticlinals diminish and the group reappears in the 

 magnificent pile of Butte and Salt Pond mountains, the latter rising to 

 fully 4500 feet above tide. These mountains extend eastward into Craig 

 county, and are conspicuously visible from localities beyond Little Walker. 

 Wolf Creek mountain, originating in Tazewell county as a loop of Clinch 

 mountain, extends to Pearis mountain and thence is continuous with the 

 others. The Garden mountains unite to form the anticlinal ridge of Round 

 mountain, which gradually disappears in the broad space between Wolf 

 creek and Brushy mountains, known as " the wilderness." 



East River mountain, originating in Tazewell county, retains its name 

 to New river, beyond which it becomes Peters mountain. Like the other 

 Medina ridges, it is rugged and almost unbroken, the only water-gap for 

 many miles being that of New river. 



The mountains, Cove and Max Meadows, in Eastern Wythe and West- 

 ern Pulaski, are short, being cut off at each end by a fault. The area occu- 

 pied by them is comparatively rugged and imperfectly cleared, so that 

 little examination was made of it. Lick mountain is about fifteen miles 

 long and is wholly within Wythe county. It lies south from the railroad, 

 is abrupt and almost uncleared. Draper's mountain, somewhat further 

 east, is in both Wythe and Pulaski, and is even more rugged than Lick 

 mountain, while its length is approximately the same. Price mountain, in 

 Montgomery county, north from the railroad, is a short, by no means 

 abrupt ridge, which extends froni New river eastward for say eight miles, 

 and attains its maximum at about five miles from that river. 



The whole region, aside from the south-west corner of Bland county, is 

 drained by the New river and its tributaries. That great stream rises on 

 the Atlantic side of the Blue Ridge and flows across every fold of the 

 great Appalachian chain until, as the Kanawha, it enters the Ohio at Point 

 Pleasant. Its most important tributaries here are Reed and Cripple 

 creeks in Wythe ; Big and Little Reed Island, Peak and Back creeks in 



