Excerpt from Preliminary Reports on the South-Eastern Kentucky Coal Field

The greater elevation of this mountain barrier, and the ab ruptness of its face, formed by uplifted rocks along an extended line of fracture, appears at first approach more like an inter ruption of the topography of the country by the uplifting of a barrier across it after its hills and valleys had been carved out and its drainage established, than like a part of the general result of the erosion of the whole country after the formation of this fault-ridge. Doubtless there is a considerable margin of fact on the side of this first impression, as will be seen by a comparison with the Cumberland mountain. But the time of the formation of this fault-ridge is probably so little removed, comparatively speaking, from the time of the upheaval of the coal measures as a whole to form a permanent part of the conti nent that it may at least be regarded as a prominent factor in the determination of the drainage before the river systems of to-day were mapped out around it.

From the time of the uplift to the present, Pine mountain has not been less prominent as a mountain barrier than it is today. And the drainage of this region has adjusted itself to this prominent feature, making extended detours along the foot of the mountain slope to find outlets to the westward with the general slope of the country. Along the face of the mountain, also, the valleys have fallen into line with the fault, as in the instance of Elkhorn Creek, of the Kentucky River above Whites burg, and of the hwds of the streams in the southwestern part of Letcher county, the same parallelism continues along the whole face. Away to the westward and north the drainage con forms in general to the slight inclinations of the rocks of the coal measures, which illustrate by varying dips, some of the minor movements attending mountain-making.

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