500 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



November 



covering humus into the soil and rock 

 fissures underneath. The portion that 

 is neither used by the vegetation nor 

 evaporated from the surface emerges 

 about the mountain slopes weeks or 

 months after its fall in countless 

 springs that feed with striking regu- 

 larity the many brooks, creeks, and 

 rivers which thus have their sources 

 here. These conditions combine to 

 make this one of the best watered re- 

 gions on the continent. 



This region embraces an irregular, 

 mountainous tableland, lying between 

 the steep and well-defined escarpment 

 of the Blue Ridge on the southeast and 

 the less rugged, but higher and more 

 massive Unaka chain on the north- 

 west. Numerous cross ridges sepa- 

 rated by narrow valleys and river 

 gorges connect these two ranges or 

 extend out between them. The region, 

 taken as a whole, has an average ele- 

 vation of more than 2,500 feet, but 

 there are many peaks that rise to about 

 5,000 feet, and a considerable num- 

 ber to over 6,000 feet. The mountain 

 slopes, though usually steep, are forest 

 covered, and have a deep, fertile soil 

 of varying physical character, which 

 is very readily eroded and washed 

 away when the forest covering is re- 

 moved. The Blue Ridge, though not 

 so high as the mountains to the west, 

 is an older range and constitutes the 

 divide between the waters flowing to 

 the sast and those flowing to the west, 

 the streams flowing in either direction 

 having their head springs in or near 

 the gaps of this divide. 



In considering the Blue Ridge as 

 the great divide of this region two por- 

 tions of it are especially notable. Near 

 Grandfather Mountain, the highest 

 point on the Blue Ridge, the New or 

 Kanawha River rises and flows north- 

 ward through Virginia and thence 

 northward into the Ohio; the Yadkin 

 rises a few yards distant on the east 

 and flows northeast and then southeast 

 into the Atlantic ; the Linville, a branch 

 of the Catawba, rises on the west side 

 and flows south-southeast, cutting 

 across the Blue Ridge in a deep gorge, 



while a few miles farther west the 

 Watauga and Nolichucky flow north- 

 west and southwest, respectively, into 

 the Tennessee and the Gulf. One hun- 

 dred and fifty miles farther southwest, 

 where the Blue Ridge is somewhat 

 broken up near its junction with the 

 Balsam cross ridge, the French Broad 

 rises and flows eastward ; the Saluda 

 flows southeast ; the Savannah south, 

 and the Tuckasegee west-southwest, 

 into the Tennessee. 



The most striking characteristic of 

 the Blue Ridge is the great apparent 

 difference in height when viewed from 

 its two sides, the streams flowing to- 

 ward the east plunging down its sides 

 in narrow V-shaped gorges for a thou- 

 sand feet or more in a distance of a 

 few miles until they reach the gentle 

 slopes of the Piedmont Plain. Those 

 flowing westward have a much easier 

 descent. 



This is well shown by the great falls 

 on the Linville River, which, rising 

 on the western slopes of Grandfather 

 Mountain, in Mitchell county, flows in 

 a general southerly course to its junc- 

 tion with the Catawba River, near the 

 southern end of the Linville Moun- 

 tains. The falls proper, which are 

 located about 3 miles below the Mitch- 

 ell-Burke county line, have a perpen- 

 dicular plunge of 40 feet, and the cas- 

 cades above are about 50 feet in height, 

 this fall of 90 feet occurring in a linear 

 distance of about 100 feet. For a dis- 

 tance of about 10 miles below the 

 falls the river flows in a series of cas- 

 cades through a narrow gorge, whose 

 sides are from 500 to nearly 2,000 feet 

 high, the walls being cut down through 

 the eroded Linville quartzites into the 

 granite below. In the first six miles 

 below the falls the descent averages 

 208 feet to the mile, and the total de- 

 scent from the head of the falls to the 

 lower end of the gorge, a distance of 

 about ten miles, is 1,800, as deter- 

 mined bv a line of levels. Along the 

 upper six or seven miles of this dis- 

 tance the bott~m of t!:e gorge is scarce- 

 ly wider than the stream. The total 

 fall of the stream from its source in 





