Monroe County: Land of Sinks
Monroe County is a rich, agriculturally blessed county with fine apple orchards, wineries, trout water, historic springs, farmland, and saltpetre (saltpeter)caves. Since settler times it has been called "the land of sinks" for its many sinkholes. One community is called Sinks Grove because of this terrain. It contains the Second Creek Watershed, which is maintained by Friends of THE Second Creek Watershed. The birthplace of American Paleontology began in the late 18th-century with the discovery of the Megalonyx Jeffersonii (Thomas Jefferson's Three-toed Sloth) in its Haynes Cave. Haynes Cave is believed to be approximately 2 to 5 million years old. Monroe County has the USGS station on its side of the town of Alderson, West Virginia, where the public gleans much useful data about temperature, pH, flow, and dissolved oxygen. Much work has been launched in efforts to study the karstic hydrology of this county. Recently the entire Second Creek Watershed was designated an historic watershed by the state of West Virginia.
Read more about this topic: Greenbrier River Watershed Association
Famous quotes containing the words monroe, land and/or sinks:
“Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)