Greenbrier County, West Virginia - 160th Anniversary Booklet - Part 26

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Historical Booklet - Greenbrier County
160th Anniversary - 1778-1938
Published 1938
Transcribed by Lori Samples <dawg @mail.us-net.com>

NATURE STUDY IN GREENBRIER

Both resident and transient students of nature have always been enthusiastic
about Greenbrier and the region round about.  Its natural values have not
only neen in its coal, limestone quarries, bluegrass, rich soils, lumber,
live stock, fishing and hunting, and beautiful scenery.  The region has also
lured the geologist, the botanist, the anthropologist, and other scientists.
Just as Washington made his interesting observations about the "grass to the
horse's belly," so others from the earliest times found fascination in the
varied forms of nature found here.  The German botanist Kim sent his
specimens and descriptions back from "Kreenpriar" to the museums of Germany.
Geologists took the word "Greenbrier" to designate wherever it might be
found that peculiar limestone formation that has the complete underground
drainage, the "sink holes" everywhere, the inumerable flints, fossil corals,
etc.  Scientists came and continue to come to this region to study the
geological formations, the rare plants, signs of Indian and pre-Indian life,
etc.

One might travel from the Rocky Mountains, over a thousand miles away, to
the very edge of this county without leaving the rocks and soils of one
geological period - the Pennsylvanian, and then before crossing this county
find besides that one the Mississippian, the Devonian, and even the
Silurian.  The west part of the county has the New River and Pocahontas
series of coal beds lying almost horizontal in high sandstone mountains
covered with timberrs and conveniently cut by streams.  Just east of those
series lies the Mauch Chunk series in places, with red and green shales that
have been easily washed out and left open farming country like that east of
Rupert.  Again east over sandstone ridges you come to an entirely different
type of farm, that lying upon the massive limestone strata of the Greenbrier
series, the soil for grass but with many limestone outcrops and therefore
often difficult to plow.  Here the residual clay gives the finest kind of
subsoil for farming, and drainage is never a problem, because the whole
country is underdrained by an enormous and as yet unexplored system of
caverns.  At the eastern edge of this plateau is the Greenbrier River, and
east of its we find an entirely different type of mountain, sandstone still
with some shale and conglomerate, but having had the strata much disturbed
by some great pressures.  Some strata in White Rock Mountain are standing on
edge.  Here begins as you go east the "Ridges Region" - long unbroken ridges
with strata dipping so deep that streams come up hot or laden with minerals.
Sulphur and calybeate springs are numerous.

Greenbrier River is interesting geologically because it is apparently an
"entrenched meander."  All these rocks were formed in the bottom of a
shallow sea, an extension of the Gulf of Mexico.  Mud made shale and slate,
sand made sandstone, pebbles made conglomerate, lime--using plants and
animals made the limestone, and spaces left by individual sponges, corals,
mollusks, etc., filled up and formed flints.  Then at several different
times the region was uplifted, and again washed and worn down.  The river
was at one time meandering over a plain here when the plain ws slowly lifted
and so the river was made to run fast and cut its bed deeper, but the change
took place so gradually that the meandering course was not changed, although
rapid streams are usually rather straight.  Another reason that the river
lies in so deep a gorge, 500 to 1000 feet below the cliffs and mountain tops
on the sides, is that much of its tributary drainage is into it from
underground and even dive underneath mountains in their courses.

There is evidence that the French Jesuits first mapped this riever, and
named it Rio De Ronceverte, River of Green Briars.  This calls attention to
the plant life of this region, noted by the earliest explorers and settlers.
The varied rocks and soils, both acid (sandy and shaley) and alkaline
(limestone), and the varied elevations and configurations afford habitats
for about 1000 species of flowering plants and many ferns, horsetails,
mosses, lichens, liverworts, etc.

There are several species of greenabrier, which is a member of the lily
family and springs from a bulb-like root.  The region is rather sharply
divided into acid and alkaline soils, but the greenbrier is common to both.
The same is true of dogwood, redbud, and many interesting wild flowers.  The
rhododendron, azaleas, and laurel are found only in the acid soils, while
the butterfly weed, wild delphinium, and others are found in the limestone
region and stop short off when they reach the shale and sandstone.  Purple
rhododendron is found on certain high cliffs and steep mountains.

Box huckleberry (an evergreen huckleberry), found along the mountains in
many places, has received much notice because of the claim that it is the
oldest living thing in the world.  The plants of a mountain side are often
found to be by under connections one great bush that has gradually spread
from an ancient center.

Along the shaley mountain sides, especially in the Devonian shales near the
White Sulphur Springs, are some rare plants of interest to visiting
botanists.  Phlox Buckliei, and evergreen phlox, and bird's-foot violets are
not so rare as mountain clover, found on Kate's mountain and in very few
other places in the world.

Another rare plant is Canby's mountain lover, a small shrub, found on top of
the ridge above the mouth of Second Creek, and in only eight other places.
But the rarest of flowers in this region is the globe flower, found on top
of Peter's Mountain in Monroe County and nowhere else in the world.

Among the rarer and more beautiful trees of the Greenbrier region are the
ear-leveled magnolia, with its big white blossoms, balsam fir, arbor vitae,
fringe, and white walnut.

Many nature students find great interest in the bogs that lie on the flat
tops of some mountains in this region.  The water is retained by a tight
layer of sandstone and the resulting conditions of cold winter and wet
summer afford a habitat resembling the tundra of northern Canada and
exhibiting a similar flora and fauna.  Cranberries are found there, and
sphagnum moss of great depth, orchids, rare ferns, sundew, etc.  Improved
roads and summer school organizations are making such items of interest in
Greenbrier now open to nature students from everywhere.

NEXT:  THE INDIAN IN GREENBRIER