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:
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“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)