Excerpt from Denudation and Erosion in the Southern Appalachian Region: And the Monongahela Basin

This report presents a brief summary of the results of an examination of the southern Appalachian region during the field seasons of 1904 and 1905 and of the Monongahela Basin in West Virginia and Pennsylvania in 1907, made for the purpose of studying the effect of deforestation and consequent erosion of the steep mountain slopes on geologic, hydrologic, and economic conditions, both in the mountain region itself and in the surrounding areas through which the many streams that rise in the high Appalachians flow on their way to the Mississippi, the Gulf, or the Atlantic.

In the southern Appalachians a detailed examination was made of an area some 400 miles long, reaching from a point near Pulaski, Va., southward to Gadsden, Ala., and from 75 to 125 miles wide, extending from the valley of east Tennessee. In which Tennessee and Holston Rivers flow, eastward across the mountains and out some distance on the Piedmont Plateau. This area, which comprises about square miles, includes a part of southwestern Virginia, the eastern borders of Tennessee, the western part of North Carolina, the northwestern part of South Carolina, the northern part of Georgia, and a portion of northeastern Alabama. In West Virginia and Pennsylvania a detailed examination was made of the entire basin of the Monongahela.

A more cursory examination was made of an additional area comprising about square miles of the southern Appalachian region, the work being carried throughout the length of several of the main rivers that head in the region and flow out across the bordering plains. No attempt was made to study the valleys of all of the many tributaries of these streams. Even had such detailed work been possible in the time available, it would not have been desirable, since in any portion of a major stream basin in which the rocks are homogeneous the features of one minor tributary are much like those of any other. Consequently, selected minor stream basins were examined and careful inquiry was made as to others. A comparison of the results of inquiry with the results of subsequent actual observation has served to check the reports and to give, it is believed, an adequate idea of the conditions in the entire area.

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