Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:03, 12 December 2023

Revision as of 13:04, 12 December 2023

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In 1808, [[United States Secretary of the Treasury|Treasury Secretary]] [[Albert Gallatin]] noted the significance of the fall line as an obstacle to improved national communication and commerce between the Atlantic seaboard and the western river systems:<ref>[Report on] Roads and Canals, Communicated to the Senate April 4, 1808, [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=037/llsp037.db&recNum=736 p.729]</ref>

{{quoteQuote|The most prominent, though not perhaps the most insuperable obstacle in the navigation of the Atlantic rivers, consists in their lower falls, which are ascribed to a presumed continuous granite ridge, rising about one hundred and thirty feet above tide water. That ridge from New York to James River inclusively arrests the ascent of the tide; the falls of every river within that space being precisely at the head of the tide; pursuing thence southwardly a direction nearly parallel to the mountains, it recedes from the sea, leaving in each southern river an extent of good navigation between the tide and the falls. Other falls of less magnitude are found at the gaps of the [[Blue Ridge Mountains|Blue Ridge]], through which the rivers have forced their passage...}}

==Notable cities==