30 
GEOLOGY CE NORTH CAROLINA. 
having in Transylvania county a great extent of level and very productive 
“bottom” land; but for the most part it is traversed by many spurs, 
ridges and secondary chains of mountains from whose intervening valleys 
and gorges come the numerous tributaries of the F. R. River. 
The other mountain valleys are of the same description, but are gen- 
erally narrower and basin or trough-like, and have been excavated in the 
same manner by the rivers which drain the successive areas between the 
transverse chains already described and are flanked by numerous pro- 
jecting spurs and ridges of the surrounding mountains, between which a 
multitude of subordinate tributary valleys ramify. There are in the valleys 
on all these streams considerable level areas, or “ bottoms” of great fer- 
tility ; as in that on Valley River in Cherokee, which is next in extent 
to that of the French Broad ; parts of the Tennessee Valley and of the 
Tuckasege V. / of the Valley of the Pigeon and of that of New River 
in Watauga and Ashe; and there are many others of less extent, but of 
exquisite beauty and fertility. Many of these are thickly 7 settled and 
highly improved. 
The Valley of Nantehaleh is a very narrow and deep gorge between 
two approximate and very high mountain chains ; and that of the lower 
Tennessee is similar, but deeper and more rugged. 
Eastward of the Blue Ridge, in the piedmont region, are the 
Valleys of the Upper Catawba and Yadkin , already referred to. 
which may; in a general way, be considered as consisting of the entire 
basins or troughs between the parallel chains which enclose them, and so 
are 15 to 20 miles wide, but the level land along these streams and inter- 
jected between the mountain spurs, often quite to the foot of the Blue 
Ridge, as the fine valley of the North Fork in McDowell, is seldom more 
than a mile wide and frequently becomes very narrow, or quite disap- 
pears. Some of these openings, as Happy Valley on the Tadkin, and 
Pleasant Gardens on the Catawba, are among the most picturesque re- 
gions to be found in any country. 
'Of the same general description are the valleys of all the rivers in 
in their courses through the piedmont and hill country of the State, — the 
Broad and its tributaries, Green River , &c. 
The Valley of the Dan River , which lies along the northern border 
of the State, from Stokes count} 7 to Person, has a large drainage surface, 
with undulating and hilly slopes of 5 to 10 and 12 miles, lying partly 
in this State and partly in Virginia, and presenting a variable breadth of 
“ bottoms,” among which are some of the best farming lands in the State. 
The bed of the river is generally 200 to 300 and occasionally even 400 
feet below the adjacent ridges or divides. When this river returns into 
