514 THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



craters and those of its tributaries the oak is comparatively untouched. Much of Wirt county and the greater part 

 of Roane, Calhoun, and Gilmer, in the upper i)art of the valley of the Little Kanawha, are a vast virgin forest of oak 

 and poplar, containing a good deal of black walnut and sugar maple and some black cherry. Baxter county is 

 magnificently timbered, as is Webster, although the timber here is yet inaecessible. 



"The Guyandotte is a good river for lumbering operations. Kafts can come down from a point 100 miles from 

 its mouth. There are yet no booms on this river, except strings of logs occasionally stretched across it for temporary 

 purposes. On its course above Guyandotte are four or five mills, doing for the most jiart a local business, their 

 product for export being only about 1,^00,000 feet of sawed lumber. The rafting of this sawed lumber is attended 

 with some risk of loss, and therefore a much greater amount is brought down in unsawed logs bound together in 

 rafts, which are taken down the Ohio and sold to various mills along its course. These rafts are usually made 11 

 logs wide, and three or four of these courses are placed end to end. White oak is made uj) into rafts with a poplar 

 log in the center of each course, and thus the raft is made light enough to float easily. Along the Guyandotte, in the 

 lower part of its course, the oak and poplar have been cut for a distance of from 1 mile to 2 miles from the stream, the 

 black walnut for some 5 miles back ; but nine-tenths of the area drained by this river is still in original foresj, 

 composed of white, chestnut, and other oaks, poplar, walnut, several hickories, beech, sugar maples, sycamore, ash, 

 etc. In this region there is, in the aggregate, a good deal of black walnut, but it exists as scattered trees rather 

 than in groves or tracts. 



" Coal river is 160 miles long, and for 30 miles, or to Pey tona, is navigable for barges. The valley of this river 

 is covered with truly magnificent forests, in which the trees of the several species composing them attain remarkable 

 dimensions. Poplar and white oak here exist in nearly equal proportions, and together constitute about a third of 

 the timber. Besides these there is a good deal of black cherry, lin, and locust, as well as hemlock, the latter not 

 being considered valuable in this country. Black walnut appears more abundant in this region than in any other 

 of similar extent of which I have yet heard. But little timber has yet been removed from the valley of this river, 

 and it is chiefly the lower portion and the immediate vicinity of the banks which have been lumbered. 



" The Elk river empties into the Kanawha at Charleston. About 2 miles above its mouth are located a boom and 

 several saw-mills, and hfere are also a dam and lock which secure slack-water for some 20 miles. The river is about 

 180 miles in length ; logs have been driven from a point 150 miles above its mouth, but its valley has only been 

 lumbered to any great extent in the immediate vicinity of the main river, and to a distance of some 110 miles from 

 its mouth. Most of the original growth of the forest of the Elk basin still remains, and is composed largely of white 

 oak, hickorj-, chestnut, and poplar. Black walnut here, as everywhere else in this state, is scattered, although it 

 is estimated that 10,000,000 feet of this lumber still remain in this region. Above a certain altitude and about 

 the upper waters of this river considerable black cherry, sugar maple, and birch is found. Here also beech 

 and basswood abound, by the streams hemlock occurs, and on the mountains a little black spruce. About the 

 upper settlements on this river miles of fence constructed with boards of black cherry and farms fenced with black- 

 walnut rails may be seen. Formerly large numbers of coal-boats and salt-boats were built upon the Elk river. 

 Once, also, the salt-works of the Kanawha required vast numbers of barrels ; these were made of black as well as 

 white oak ; now but five of the sixty furnaces once boiling brine in this vicinity are in operation, and there is little 

 demand for black oak for staves. The country along the Kanawha between the Elk and the Gauley rivers has been 

 lumbered for 5 or C miles back from the streams, and about one-fourth of the timber has been cut from these valleys. 

 The Gauley river with its several large tributaries drains a valley which covers nearly 5,000 square miles; its length 

 is about 110 miles, much less than that of the Elk, which is a long, slender stream, but it occupies a much broader 

 valley and has twice the volume of water of the Elk. Unlike the rivers just considered, which wear out for 

 themselves smooth channels through the soft sandstone, the Gauley is a rough stream, tumbling rapidly over hard 

 conglomerate todk, its bed being full of bowlders and ledges. For the first 10 miles from its mouth the fall averages 

 4 feet to the mile ; above that 20 feet to the mile, while its upper waters are so swift and rough as to be unnavigable 

 even for small boats. For these reasons the Gauley does not admit of the passing of rafts, and it is a difiicult river 

 upon which even to drive single logs. Its valley is but little settled, except on Meadow river and along its right 

 bank below that stream . Above a point 15 miles from its mouth no timber has been touched except by the few settlers. 

 In the lower part of the valley of the Gauley for 15 or more miles the timber is chiefly oak, poplar, walnut, etc. 

 The Gauley and its large affluents, the Cherry, Cranberry, and Williams rivers, all head back in the forests of black 

 spruce, which sometimes take entire possession of the mountain tops; a little lower, yet often mingled with the 

 sjjruce, hemlocks and black cherry abound. On Cherry river the cherry trees so predominate over all others as to, 

 have given their name to the stream. Here are trees often 4 feet in diameter. The region intermediate between 

 the upper and the lower districts of the Gauley thus described contains much beech, sugar maple, and black 

 cherry. The white oak which abounds in the lower basin of this river disappears above an altitude of 2,000 feet. 

 I was informed that, although lumbering operations were but lately begun on the Gauley, nearly 1,000,000 feet of 

 poplar were brought out of the river in 1879, and thsit it had yielded 50,000 feet of black walnut in 1880, while 

 there were now in the river poplar logs enough to make 3,000,000 feet of lumber. About one-fourth of the cut of 

 late years has been sawed at mills near the falls : the rest is rafted to Charleston. 



