WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I9
THE SYLVA.
The State is very happily located for the growth of forests, being in the favored belt of temperature between about 37° and 41° north latitude. Within its boundaries trending northeast and southwest, thus opening the country to the damp, warm winds from the Gulf, are numerous ranges of the great Appalachian, or Atlantic highlands, but by far the larger portion of the State lies on the westward slope of these mountains in the trans-Appalachian belt, the waters of which chiefly run northwestward and southwestward to the Ohio River. The altitude of the country descends from the Backbone or Alleghany range of the Appalachians, from an altitude of from 2,500 and 4,800 feet to 500 at the southwestern corner of the State on the Ohio, at Kenova, and about 600 on the same river at Wheeling. The altitude of the eastern corner of the State at Harper's Ferry is 272 feet; thus the range of altitudes in the State is from 272 feet to about 4,800, giving a climatic range of 3,728 feet, or the equivalent of about 16° of latitude; consequently West Virginia has extensive areas of adaptability for every variety of forest growth that is found within the limits of the northern States east of the Rocky Mountains.
The most elevated portion of the State is the great eastern border of the ridgy plateau from which the trans-Appalachian country descends, a territory some 200 miles in length from the headwaters of the Big Sandy to those of the North Branch Potomac, this region is in the main from 2,500 to 4,800 feet in altitude, and furnishes a congenial home to the black spruce, the white pine, and other evergreen trees peculiar to northern latitudes.
West Virginia has a greater amount of hardwood timber in its forests than any other State in the Union. A thorough examination convinces us that nearly or quite two-thirds of the State remains uncleared, and of this about a million and a half acres is still in virgin forests where the ax of man has never found its way, and where magnificent specimens of forest growth stand thickly side by side and reach a towering height, no finer view of standing timber may be had within the confines of the Union. These splendid forests covering over twenty-three thousand square miles yield nearly every species found in the north.
