MURPHREE'S VALLEY; DRAINAGE. 9 



lower Silurian and Cambrian formations, yet its floor is from 

 to two hundred feet higher than the synclinal trough in 

 the COAL MEASURES, near its N. W. side, in which the War- 

 rior rivers flow. Another fact must also be noticed in this 

 connection. This valley has no synclinal depression belong- 

 iKj to its fold on the S. E. side. That side is much higher 

 than the floor of the valley, and slopes toward it ; hence the 

 streams which rise on that side run into, and across the val- 

 ley, and out through its north-western rrm into the low lying 

 synclinal trough, between this and the Sequatchie fold. A 

 profile view would present this as a great valley scooped 

 out along the side of a long north-west slope ; one of nature's 

 immense, but now disused, hillside ditches, which once per- 

 haps answered the purpose of drainage, but now offers no 

 impediment to the streams flowing across it from the Raccoon 

 Mountain. The breadth of this slope is from 15 to 20 miles. 

 Its highest part is the eastern top of the Blount Mountain, 

 or western rim of the great Cahaba and Coosa folds. The 

 average declination throughout this distance is about 25 feet 

 to the mile. The fall of streams beiore they reach the valley, 

 and after they leave it, is very great, affording many fine 

 mill-seats and ample water power for industrial machinery. 

 The only exception to the course of the drainage across 

 the valley is in that part lying north-east of the Locust Fork 

 of the Warrior, known as Bristow's Cove, in which the streams 

 rising in the valley flow down it about 10 or 12 miles to the 

 Warrior River. In this upper part of the valley, and in the 

 long mountain north-east of it, extending along the north- 

 western side of Wills' Valley, the slope uf the country seems 

 to be to the south-west, as the streams all flow in that direc- 

 tion, along the margin of Wills' Valley, thence gradually 

 changing into a north-western course to the Tennessee river. 



