the Tar, the Neuse and the Cape Fear, usually navigable some for
fifty and others to near one hundred miles for boats of light
draught. Of these the three last 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.

6. The great rivers of these three systems, with their network of
countless tributaries, great and small, afford a truly
magnificent water supply. Flat lands border the streams in every
section; they are everywhere exceptionally rich, and in the
Tidewater section, of great breadth. 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 have been established, and are multiplying
every year.

7. 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