IN I RODOCTION. 
33 
The Nolechucky receives its waters from the high culminating plateau 
previously described, draining the slopes of the Black, the Roan and 
Grandfather. Its principal tributaries are C'aney River , and North Toe 
and South T'te. The aggregate length is 100 miles, and the fall from 
the plateau of the Old Fields of Toe to the State line, more than 1,500 
feet; drainage area 600 square miles. 
T Ik River rises in the neighborhood of the Grandfather, and has a 
course of only some 12 or 15 miles within the State, draining a single 
narrow basin of not more than 30 square miles between the Yellow and 
Beech Mountains, and is a tributary of the 
Watauga River , which it enters beyond the boundaries of the State. 
This drains an area of 100 square miles, lying between the last named 
range, the Blue Ridge, and the heavy cross chain of the Rich mountains. 
Its fall from the mouth of Boone Fork, is some 500 feet, and its length 
inside of the State about 20 miles. 
New River differs from all the other streams of the State in that it 
flows northward , into the Ohio. Its drainage surface is quite large, cov- 
ering the three counties of Watauga, Ashe and Alleghany. Its waters 
are chiefly contributed by two nearlv equal rivers, North Fork and South 
Fork, which unite near the Virginia line, in the northeastern corner of 
Ashe, taking thence an east course along the margin of the State, which 
it re-enters about midway of Alleghany county, where it impinges against 
the Peach Bottom mountains, the last of the cross chains, and is deflected 
into a course a little east of north, towards the Kanawha Valley in Vir- 
ginia. Its aggregate length, within the State, is nearly 100 miles, and its 
fall 700 feet, at least. This is one of the larger mountain rivers, — -of the 
same order of magnitude with the Hiwassee, French Broad, &c. Drain- 
age surface (in N. C.) 700 square miles. 
There is a common feature of these streams that is worthy of special 
remark, viz: that through a considerable part of their very tortuous 
course across the plateau from the Blue Ridge to the Smokjq the amount 
of their fall per mile is frequently quite small, not greater than that of 
the rivers east of the mountains, the greater part of their descent occur- 
ring within the gorges through which they force their way across the 
Smoky chain, so that many of them present navigable channels of con- 
siderable extent. The French Broad, for example, has a fall of less than 
3 feet to the mile from Brevard to Asheville. 
And again, the dominancv of the western chain of mountains frequently 
asserts itself in a very striking manner, notwithstanding it is obliged, 
sooner or later, to give passage to all the streams of the plateau. The 
French Broad is a striking illustration as well as North Toe and New 
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