Geography
The geology of Virginia's terrain changes from the sandy coastal plain of the Tidewater Region to the more hilly and rocky Piedmont Region along the north-south fall line. At Richmond, the generally west to east flowing James River turns almost due south and essentially flows parallel to and just east of the fall line for about 8 miles (13 km), before turning east again near Drewry's Bluff. On the west bank of this section, the Piedmont terrain contained the ore deposits needed to make iron, but was still adjacent to the navigable portion of the James River through the Tidewater Region. A local tributary, Falling Creek, flowed downhill into the James River, providing the water power needed.
Read more about this topic: Falling Creek Ironworks
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)