Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1917-08-03
INSPIRING Scene.
Hills And Mountains Around
Richlands Present Nest Beau
tiful Landscape:


Matte Williams hospital, one of the
most beautiful landscapes of beau
tiful Southwest Virginia is unfolded
Though lacking the rugged grandeur
of sheer mountain and butting cliff
that attracts and repels in the New
River and Cumberland valleys, this
scene in June is one of tranquil ant
variagated livelincss,-the loveliness
of hill and valley, field and meadow
corn land and grass land, and smoke
spirals ascending from the wide
flung homes of the prosperous people
| Here the Valley of Clinch River is
at its widest and best, rs it swings
to the Southwest through the long
reaches of the "Richlands" from
which the town derives q name, be-
] slowed upon it by an argonaut of
West Augusta in the early days and
then as now descripture and appro-
pirate.
And here beyond other sections the
love of nature in all her moods snd
lenses can study to best advantage
the effects of erosion, attrition and
| accretion, working through the CEN
turies, the processes of decay, of
wearing away, and of building anew,
resulting in rounded hills, in terraced
valleys, woodland and sward as we
see it today.
To the east, the southeast, south
and north the view is terminated by
the crest lines of two great ridges,
Kent's ridge to the east and South
which becomes Copper Ridge in Rus
sell and Scott, Walden's ridge in Lee
and then juts into the Cumberland
and Sandy Ridge. On the north whiei,
here bends to the Southwest to be
merged soon with the Cumberlands
in the great plateau of Wise. With
these as the apparent range of Wis
ion, we have a succession of "Little
Hills" and broader hills, and high
er hills beyond" and since, there can
be no two hills without valley be-
tween" we have an endless sue
cession of hill and valley of valley
and hill.
All the hills are not rounded, tho
many look as if the mound builders
had planned them for some are but
the shoulders of ridges which were
thrown "across" the valley in the last
great upheaval, and have been shorn
through by the immortal attrition of
the waters and of these shoulders
three striking exhibits Of the eccen-
trio work of the centuries are seen
from this observatory.
To the southeast the most wonder
full of these eccentric effects is shown
in Gable Hill. Outlined as clearly as
the artificial gables of the nearby
houses, the angular front yet covered
by scrubby forest growth and slop-
ing up in concentric lines to the apex,
and the grass covered roof sides con-
verging the sharp outline of the crest
and thence back to the ridge from
which it was outthrown in the final
agony of worlds birth.
Another should be called Bald Face,
for it fronts is shaped like a face
from which the nose has been sheared
away, and shows the elevations of
the water line as the young river re-
ceded from age to age in it's inevita-
BILE grind for the lowest level, the last
of these being q beautiful terrace
formed perhaps only couple of cen
turies ago, and conforming graceful
ly to the curve of the river. On the
west of Bald Face it outflung should
der, (no part of the original for
mation), and resulting from the swirl
and eddy of the waters.
To the right and west shows moth
er like formation, now called Brick
Hill, where modern industry has TAX
en- over the task of the receding wa
ters and busy plant is supplying
material for busy builders.
The prospect to the westward from
the Matte Williams hospital and be-
low its collonade balconies is the
bending valley of the Clinch, with it's
low lying fields, and farms reaching
from ridge to ridge, and to the sum-
mits of both, with the boom of the
town of Doran, in the near distance,
where the exploiters in 1890 discover
ed that the land was "too rich" to
be used for mere buildings and moved
their camps to st. Paul, to Norton, to
Big Stone and Cumberland Gap.
A striking foreground to this pic
ture is the great nature formed ter
race beyond the river, following it's
bend to the foothills on the north and
marking its banks q few centuries
since. Since then it has formed a
lower stream bed, leaving the in
tervening land as level as a house
floor, as all alluvial lands are left by
changing channels. The river which
gives a name to Clinch Valley and
which has been so busy through the
centuries in changing its topography,
is one of the beautiful affluents of the
Tennessee, which at Kingston swal-
lows the Clinch and the Holston, and
under its new name swings toward the
Southwest and Gulf, but repentin-
ing of it's desertion of it's native hills
turns northward in Alabnma and emp
ties its sun warmed waters into the
Ohio at Paduca, KY.
IN e