CUMBERLAND—BELL AND HARLAN COUNTIES. 5 
‘try and those whose timbers are, at best, only tolerably good, 
often mediocre. There are no intermediate chains. To the 
former class belong the Black Mountain and its spurs; to the 
latter class, the Brush, Pine, and Cumberland mountains. [I 
tried to find out the reason of this extraordinary difference 
in the timbers of mountain ranges which are all intermingled, 
and whose geological composition is essentially the same. My 
opinion is, that the difference is due to the position of the 
underlying rocks. In the Pine, Cumberland, and Brush moun- 
‘tains these rocks have an average dip of 14° to 25°. The re- 
sult is, that in passing up one face of the mountain we climb 
directly up the dip, which so nearly coincides with the slope of 
the mountain that the beating of summer rains and the action 
of winter snows keep the soil washed off nearly down to the 
‘rocks themselves, leaving no ground for the roots of a massive 
forest growth to take hold and flourish in. The result is a 
‘stunted growth of hardy trees, whose roots are spread out on 
the surface of the barely covered rock below, such as moun- 
‘tain chestnut oak and rather small sizes of chestnut, red oak, 
‘pin oak, and the various pines. On going down the opposite 
side of these mountains, the continual masses of outcropping 
rocks, forming a steep and precipitous descent, leave no room 
for other timbers than the Rhododendron (wild rose bay), Kal- 
mia latifolia (American laurel), and such shrubs as cling to 
the faces of rocky cliffs. 
On the Black Mountain and its spurs, on the other hand, 
the rocks are horizontal, and the slowly accumulating detritus 
clings to their surfaces, whose position opposes the slope of 
the mountain at such an angle as to hold the detritus in place. 
A loose soil accumulates, in which an abundance of forest 
weeds spring up, and the decay of leaves and of these an- 
nually dying weed-tops constantly adds richness and depth 
to the soil already in position. The consequence is, that, in 
the parts of the Black Mountains familiar to me, even on the 
‘steepest slopes, there is a rich alluvial soil of from two to 
four feet in depth. For this reason, there is a growth of 
-chestnut, tulip tree (yellow poplar), black walnut, white and 
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