Geography of North Carolina
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The Geography of North Carolina, a state of the United States, falls naturally into three divisions or sections -- the Appalachian mountains formed mostly by the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, the Middle or Piedmont Plateau, and the Eastern or Tidewater section, also known as the Coastal Plain. North Carolina covers 53,821 square miles and is 560 miles long by 150 miles wide. The physical characteristics of the state can be pictured as a surface spread out upon a vast declivity, sloping down from the summits of the Smoky Mountains, an altitude of near seven thousand feet, to the ocean level.
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[edit] Blue Ridge/Appalachian mountains
The mountains of North Carolina may be conveniently classed as four separate chains:
- The Great Smoky Mountains, forming the western boundary of the state.
- The Blue Ridge, running across the state in a very tortuous course and shooting out in spurs of great elevation.
- The Brushy (which divides, for the greater part of its course, the waters of the Catawba and Yadkin), beginning at a point near Lenoir and terminating in the Pilot and Sauratown Mountains.
- The Uwharrie or Oconeechee Mountains, which derives its names from its local name at different points. An inferior range of much lower elevation which begins in Montgomery county and terminates in the heights about Roxboro, in Person county.
Each of these mountain ranges is marked by distinct characteristics. The Smoky Mountain chain (as contrasted with the next highest, the Blue Ridge) is more continuous, more elevated, more regular in its direction and height, and rises very uniformly from five thousand to nearly six thousand seven hundred feet.
The Blue Ridge is composed of many fragments scarcely connected into a continuous and regular chain. Its higher summits range from five thousand to five thousand nine hundred feet. The Brushy range presents, throughout the greater part of its course, a remarkable uniformity in direction and elevation, many of its peaks rising above two thousand feet. The last, the Oconeechee or Uwharrie range, sometimes presents a succession of elevated ridges, then a number of bold and isolated knobs, whose heights are one thousand feet above the sea level.
The mountain section consists of the tallest peaks east of the Rocky Mountains. The tallest of the Appalachian Mountains being Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet. Mount Mitchell is the tallest point east of the Mississippi River. The section enclosed within these limits is in shape somewhat like an ellipse. Its length is about one hundred and eighty miles; its average breadth from twenty to fifty miles. It is a high plateau, from the plane of which several high mountains rise, including the Roan, the Grandfather, and the Black. Between the mountains are scenic fertile valleys, plentifully watered by streams. The mountains themselves are wooded, except a few which have prairies on their summits, locally distinguished as "balds."
[edit] Piedmont Plateau
The Piedmont, a succession of hills and dales forms the central portion of the state. It is the remnants of high mountains that have been worn down "to the roots." The terrain tends to consist of thin, stony clay-based soils over granitic gneiss and other metamorphic rocks. At the eastern margin of the piedmont are sandy hills which represent an old ocean shoreline and its beaches and dunes. The well drained soils of this region are known for peaches and melons.
[edit] Coastal Plain
The eastern section of low relief with a breadth of about one hundred miles. The farthest east portion of the state contains the Outer Banks, sand islands that do not have coral reefs to attach themselves to and thus are constantly shifting their locations. The Outer Banks are host to three capes: Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, and Cape Fear.
[edit] Agriculture
The cultivated productions of the Mountain section are sweetcorn, wheat, oats, barley, hay, tobacco, fruits and vegetables. Cattle are also reared quite extensively for market. In the Middle section are found all the productions of the former, and over the southern half cotton appears as the staple product. In the deep loamy soils of the coastal region, cotton, corn, and oats and are staple crops, and truck farming (growing fruits and vegetables for northern markets), constitutes a flourishing industry. Formerly longleaf pine forests produced tar, pitch and turpentine, and more recently lumber. Little old growth longleaf acreage is left; much has been replanted in loblolly pine, which is used for paper pulp, plywood, and lumber Four grape varieties of America are native to North Carolina; the Catawba, Isabella, Lincoln, and Scuppernong.
[edit] Flora/Fauna
The flora of the state varies from Alpine regions to sub-tropical.
North Carolina is notable for its botanic biodiversity. Nearly all the species of trees found in the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, are found in North Carolina. There are more species of oaks in North Carolina than in all the states to the north, and only one less than in all the Southern States east of the Mississippi. This range of elevation affords also a great variety of medicinal herbs. The mountains of North Carolina have sometimes been called 'storehouse' of the United States for botanical medicines.
[edit] River systems
There are three distinct systems of rivers in the state: those that find their way to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi, those that flow through South Carolina to the sea and those that reach the sea along the North Carolina coast. The divide between the first and the second is the Blue Ridge chain of mountains; that between the second and third systems is found in an elevation extending from the Blue Ridge, near the Virginia line, just between the sources of the Yadkin and the Roanoke, in a south-easterly direction some two hundred miles, almost to the sea-coast below Wilmington. In the divide between the first and second systems, which is also the great watershed between the Atlantic slope and the Mississippi Valley, a singular anomaly is presented, for it is formed not by the lofty Smoky range, but by the Blue Ridge -- not, therefore, at the crest of the great slope which the surface of the state presents, but on a line lower down. On the western flank of this lower range the French Broad and the other rivers of the first section, including the headwaters of the Great Khanawha, have their rise. In their course through the Smoky Mountains to the Mississippi they pass along chasms or "gaps" from three thousand to four thousand feet in depth. These chasms or "gaps" are more than a thousand feet lower than those of the corresponding parts of the Blue Ridge.
The rivers of the second system rise on the eastern flank of the Blue Ridge. These rivers -- the Catawba and the Yadkin, with their tributaries stretching from the Broad River, near the mountains in the west, to the Lumber near the seacoast -- water some thirty counties in the state, a fan-shaped territory, embracing much the greater portion of the Piedmont section of the state, thence passing into South Carolina before reaching the seacoast.
The rivers of the third system are the Chowan, the Roanoke, the Tar, the Neuse and the Cape Fear, which were important travel routes prior to the development of the railroads, being navigable some for fifty and others to near one hundred miles for boats of light draught. Of these the last three have their rise near the northern boundary of the state, in a comparatively small area, near the eastern source of the Yadkin. The Chowan has its rise in Virginia, below Appomattox Court House. The principal sources of the Roanoke, also, are in Virginia, in the Blue Ridge, though some of its head streams are in North Carolina, and very near those of the Yadkin. Only one of these rivers, the Cape Fear, flows directly into the ocean in this state; the others, after reaching the low country, move on with diminished current and empty into large bodies of water known as sounds. The Yadkin is extensively dammed for hydroelectric power and flood control. Below the last dam, just before flowing into South Carolina it is renamed the Pee Dee River.
The rivers of these three systems, with their tributaries afford a generous water supply. Flat lands border the streams, mostly forested with hardwoods and cypress. In their course from the high plateaus to the low country all the rivers of the state have a descent of many hundred feet, made by frequent falls and rapids. These falls and rapids afford all unlimited motive power for machinery of every description; and here many cotton mills and other factories were established from colonial times, and gave rise to many of the cities and towns.
The sounds, and the rivers which empty into them, constitute a network of waterway for steam and sailing vessels of eleven hundred miles. They are separated from the ocean by a line of sand banks, varying in breadth from one hundred yards to two miles, and in height from a few feet above the tide level to twenty-five or thirty feet, on which horses of a small breed, called "Bank Ponies," are reared in great numbers, and in a half wild state. These banks extend along the entire shore a distance of three hundred miles. Through them there are a number of inlets from the sea to the sounds, but they are usually too shallow except for vessels of light burden. Along its northern coast the seagoing commerce of the state has, in consequence, been restricted; Beaufort Harbor and the Cape Fear River, however, furnish excellent ports.
The sounds, and the rivers in their lower courses, abound with fish and waterfowl. They riversides are favorite sites for hunters of canvas-back ducks and other waterfowl. Fishermen visit for herring, shad and rock-fishing, especially along Albemarle Sound.
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[edit] Climate
The climate of North Carolina is mild and equable. This is due in part to its geographical position; midway, as it were, between the northern and southern limits of the Union. Also the high Appalachian chain offers, to some extent, a shield from cold winter winds of the northwest. On the ocean side, in winter, is the moderating influence of the warm Gulf Stream, the current of which sweeps along near its shores.
The result of these combined causes is shown in the character of the seasons. Fogs are almost unknown; frosts occur not until the middle of October; ice rarely forms of a sufficient thickness to be gathered; snows are light, seldom remaining on the ground more than two or three days, except in the higher elevations. The average rainfall is about fifty-three inches, which is pretty uniformly distributed throughout the year.
