Topography of the Valley of the Monongahela. 53 



Ing off by degrees the accumulated flood, its bed was eventually- 

 laid bare, which bed now forms a modern glade. This broken, 

 hilly, or mountainous country, is continued throughout the whole 

 region, watered by the -Monongahela and its tributary streams. 

 Some tracts of level lands are found between the branches of the 

 western fork of the river, as it approaches the w^aters of the Little 

 and Great Kenawha. To a traveller, passing from the south east- 

 ern to the north western side of the Alleghany range, the change 

 in the features and appearance of the country is very striking and 

 interesting ; and he would at once be led to conclude that they had 

 been formed at different periods, and under different circumstances, 

 or laws of deposition. On the eastern side, he sees well defined con- 

 tinuous ridges of mountains ranging parallel with each other, and 

 composed of graywacke slate, magnesian limestone and other tran- 

 sition rocks, whose tops are sterile and barren, or clothed with na- 

 ked rocks, from which, apparently the soil has ages since, been 

 washed away, thus affording only a meagre support to the forest 

 trees which chng to their sides. The streams of wat'er are pure and 

 limpid, and direct and rapid in their courses. Springs are abund- 

 ant, copious and durable, affording a constant supply to the numer- 

 ous rivulets which rise in the mountains and pour their tributary 

 streams into the ocean. On the western side, the formations are 

 altogether secondary, and abound in argillaceous and arenaceous 

 materials. The streams are turbid and tortuous in their course, and 

 as they descend into the valley, they become slow in their progress. 

 The springs are few and small, and readily affected by the droughts 

 of summer. The hills are irregular in their height, and in their ar- 

 rangement, but they are generally very fertile, covered with a rich 

 argillaceous soil to their very summits, and produce a luxuriant 

 vegetation, such as is usually found only on rich alluvions; they are 

 invariably clothed with forest trees of the most lofty height. This 

 striking difference in the two opposite sides, is occasioned altogeth- 

 er by the different rock formations ; so much does the character of 

 a country depend upon the strata on which it is based. The differ- 

 ent species of forest trees are arranged according to the elevation 

 and quahty of the soil. On the highest points of the Cheat moun- 

 tains we find spruce, hemlock, white pine and birch, and also on 

 the other ridges — as we descend, chesnut, chesnut oak, beech, pop- 

 lar, dogwood, &c. appear ; but the chesnut and chesnut oaks, are 

 confined chiefly to the spurs and ridges that put out from the main 



