Note 1215 — Chapter XV · —Mountain Barriers And Their Passes

The anthropo-geography of mountain valleys depends upon the structure of the highlands themselves, whether they are fold mountains, whose ranges wall in longitudinal valleys, or dissected plateaus, whose valleys are mostly transverse river channels leading from the hydrographic center out to the rim of the highlands. Longitudinal valleys are not only long, but also broad as a rule and often show a nearly level floor.1215 They therefore form districts of considerable size, fertility, and individuality, and play distinct historical rôles in the history of their respective highlands. Such are the upper Rhone Valley with its long line of flourishing towns and villages, the Hither Rhine, the Inn of the Tyrol and the Engadine, the fertile trough of the meandering Isère above Grenoble,1216 the broad Orontes-Leontes valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon where Kadesh and Baalbec were once the glory of northern Syria. Such is the central trough of the Appalachian Mountains, known as the Great Appalachian Valley, seventy-five miles wide, subdivided into constituent valleys of similar character by parallel, even-crested ridges following the trend of the mountains. These are drained by broad, leisurely rivers, bordered by fertile farms and substantial towns. Transverse valleys, on the other hand, are generally narrow, with steep slopes rising almost from the river's edge and supporting only small villages and farms. A comparison of the spacious, smooth-floored valley of Andermatt with the wild Reuss gorge, of the fertile and populous Shenandoah Valley in the Southern Appalachians with the canon of the Kanawha in the Cumberland Plateau, makes the contrast striking enough.