THE WORK OF STREAMS 



97 



case in the vicinity of smelters, erosion may be very rapid. This is 

 well shown in Potato Creek (Figs. 75, 76) in the Ducktown copper 



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Fig. 75. — Potato Creek, Tennessee, a stream overburdened with waste and 

 aggrading. (See also Fig. 76.) (U. S. Geol. Surv.) 



region of Tennessee, where the waste from the bare slopes is too great 

 for the stream to remove and is piled up along its course as a flood 

 plain (p. 119). In this creek the waste has accumulated for a number 

 of years at the rate of a foot or more a year (Fig. 76, A, B), and has 



Fig. y6. — Generalized diagram showing the effect of deforestation on Potato Creek, 

 Tennessee. A shows the former condition of the valley, and B the condition after the 

 timber had been killed and the stream loaded with sediment. The telephone poles 

 were buried to their cross arms. 



built up a flood plain in which telephone poles are buried almost to 

 their cross arms, while highway bridges and roadbeds have been 

 either buried or swept away by floods. 



