EI^ISHA Ml'TCK^LL, SClBNTtB*IC SOCIETY. 21 



and Paint Rock there is a great fall. At Asheville the 

 altitude of the river is about 2100 feet while at Paint 

 Rock it is 1264, thus gfivinj^ a fall of 181 feet to the mile. 

 The town of Brevard is lower than Asheville but both 

 towns are above the river. However I believe that there 

 would not be a difference of many feet in the altitude of 

 the sti'eam at the two places. We can see from map of 

 the orig-inal draiuag-e the French Broad as it ran south- 

 east, with the river that is about to capture it cutting" 

 throug-h the Smokies and having- their divide just east of 

 the Tennessee line. As in the other cases the divide has 

 migrated east and the western river has captured and in- 

 verted the French Broad and led it out to the west. This 

 finishes up the Asheville basin or syncline. Now let us 

 look at the others. The next one I will take up is the 

 old Dan River syncline which I have described above. 

 It has had two changes. First it has been cut into by 

 the Yadkin which has led about 50 miles of the Dan River 

 headwaters to the sea through its channels and secondly 

 it has had numerous readjustments through its headwa- 

 ters and those of John's River, a tributary of the Ca- 

 tawba. In the drawing- of the original drainage, map (I,) 

 we can see the position of this syncline which orig-inally 

 extended into Virg-inia and met the Deep River syncline. 

 In the drawing- we see that the Yadkin is about to cut 

 into the Dan and as soon as it cuts through it will take 

 the waters to the sea because having- a shorter distance 

 to go it must have a g-reater fall and will hence take the 

 Dan in preference to being- captured. The Dan was thus 

 turned from its course and led to the sea by the Yadkin. 

 The present Dan River has a branch, Town Fork, that 

 still follows the old bed. The headwaters of the Yadkin 

 have extended themselves still further north and are now 

 known as the Ararat River. We will now turn our at- 

 tention to the captures made in the headwaters of the 

 syncline; and this brings me to mention a fifth syncline in 

 North Carolina which I had not noticed until after I had 



