THE APPALACHIAN RIVER VERSUS A TERTIARY 

 TRANS-APPALACHIAN RIVER IN EASTERN 

 TENNESSEE/ 



In a very able and interesting paper, entitled " Geomorphology 

 of the Southern Appalachians," by Hayes and Campbell,^ con- 

 siderable evidence is adduced in support ot the theory that the 

 drainage of the southern Appalachian valley up to late Tertiary 

 time was through one rather large subsequent stream, occupying, 

 in general, the position of the upper Tennessee and Coosa Rivers. 

 This river, which ran down, as they believe, east of Lookout Moun- 

 tain, over what is now the Tennessee-Coosa divide, and directly 

 into the Gulf, has been called by them the Appalachian River. 

 The evidence given for the existence of such a river is threefold : 



"(i) the perfectly base-leveled divide between the Tennessee and Coosa River 

 basins ; (2) a comparison of the volume of material eroded from the Appa- 

 lachian valley with that of the Tertiary sediments in central Alabama; and (3) 

 the immaturity of the Tennessee gorge through the plateau below Chattanooga.^ 



The three lines of evidence will be taken up in the order given 

 above and examined briefly in the light of other facts furnished 

 by this region, to see if the Appalachian River theory is the 

 most tenable. 



Tke Coosa- Tennessee divide.— It is admitted by Hayes and 

 Campbell that similar low divides are found between other river 

 basins of the Appalachian valley from Pennsylvania southward ; 

 as between the Potomac and the James, and the James and the 

 Roanoke ; but they do not believe that any great river ever flowed 



^The writer came to the view advocated in this paper in 1896, while engaged in 

 thefield under discussion. The paper was written in May, 1897 ^s a report in a course 

 in physical geography in Harvard University given by Professor W. M. Davis. Pub- 

 lication has been delayed owing to a desire to make a more extended study of the 

 problem in the field, but interest in other fields renders the making of such an exam- 

 ination improbable at an early date; it therefore seems best to present the paper in its 

 original form. 



*C. WiLLARD Hayes and Marius R. Campbell, "Geomorphology of the 

 Southern Appalachians," National Geographic Magazine, Vol. VI, pp. 63-126. 



'^Ibid., p. 109. 



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