Georgia: Its History, Condition and ResourcesDrake, Samuel Adams
History
Georgia: Its History, Condition and Resources
Drake, Samuel Adams
Georgia -- Description and travel
The Savannah is formed of two small streams which rise near the
North Carolina line, and unite on the boundary between S. Carolina
and Georgia in Hart county. Flowing thence in a nearly S.S.E.
direction for 450 miles, it enters the Atlantic near 32° N. lat.
The Savannah is navigable from November to June. Ships ascend
it 18 miles to the city of Savannah, steamboats to Augusta, 230
miles, and by means of a canal around the falls there, constructed
in 1845, light draught vessels navigate it 150 miles higher. This
canal, 9 miles long, furnishes the water-power of Augusta. The
river is here about 300 yards wide. From Augusta the traveller
descends the Savannah through the cotton-fields of the table-lands,
and the long reaches of semi-tropical vegetation dominated by
groves of live oak, to the rich rice plantations of the seaboard.
The Chattahoochee is one of the largest and most interesting
rivers of Georgia. It rises on the declivity of the Blue Ridge, in
Habersham county, in the N.E. of the State, pursues a devious S.W.
course through the gold region of upper Georgia until it reaches
West Point, on the Alabama frontier. It then flows nearly south
to the Florida State line, where it is joined by the Flint, when
the two streams flow on through Florida to the Gulf under the name
of the Appalachicola. Large steamboats ascend the Chattahoochee
in the season of navigation to Columbus, 350 miles from the Gulf.
The whole estimated length of the river is 550 miles. The falls
at Columbus create a valuable water-power, constituting that city
one of the three important manufacturing centres of the State.
Just above Columbus the Chattahoochee is broken in picturesque
rapids, overlooked by a rocky cliff called the “Lover’s Leap,”
which is the subject of an interesting legend. Besides Columbus,
the towns of West Point and Fort Gaines are the most important on
the Chattahoochee in Georgia; Appalachicola at its embouchure on
the Gulf is its shipping and distributing port, but is decreasing
in importance since the railway system of the State has assumed a
large share of the traffic once confined to the navigable streams.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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