and those that reach the sea along our own 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 beautiful
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.

4. 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.

5. The rivers of the third system are the Chowan, the Roanoke,