Editing Appalachian Mountains (section)

===Drainage===
[[File:Eastern North American Paleogeography Middle Devonian.gif|thumb|[[Palaeogeography|Paleogeographic]] reconstruction showing the Appalachian Basin area during the Middle Devonian period<ref name="url">{{Cite web |url=http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/rcb7/nam.html |title=Paleogeography and Geologic Evolution of North America |last=Blakey |first=Ron |website=Global Plate Tectonics and Paleogeography |publisher=Northern Arizona University |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080621201253/http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/rcb7/nam.html |archive-date=June 21, 2008 |access-date=July 4, 2008}}</ref>]]
There are many geological issues concerning the rivers and streams of the Appalachians. In spite of the existence of the Great Appalachian Valley, many of the main rivers are transverse to the mountain system axis. The [[drainage divide]] of the Appalachians follows a tortuous course that crosses the mountainous belt just north of the [[New River (Kanawha River)|New River]] in Virginia. South of the New River, rivers head into the Blue Ridge, cross the higher Unakas, receive important tributaries from the Great Valley, and traversing the Cumberland Plateau in spreading gorges ([[water gap]]s), escape by way of the [[Cumberland River]] and the [[Tennessee River]] rivers to the [[Ohio River]] and the Mississippi River, and thence to the [[Gulf of Mexico]]. In the central section, north of the New River, the rivers, rising in or just beyond the Valley Ridges, flow through great gorges to the Great Valley, and then across the Blue Ridge to tidal estuaries penetrating the coastal plain via the Roanoke River, [[James River (Virginia)|James River]], [[Potomac River]], and [[Susquehanna River]].<ref name="EB1911" />

In the northern section the height of land lies on the inland side of the mountainous belt, and thus the main lines of drainage run from north to south, exemplified by the [[Hudson River]].<ref name="EB1911" /> However, the valley through which the Hudson River flows was cut by the gigantic [[glacier]]s of the [[ice age]]s—the same glaciers that deposited their [[terminal moraine]]s in southern New York and formed the east–west [[Long Island]].

[[File:Appleorchardmountain.jpg|thumb|[[Apple Orchard Mountain]] peak in the [[Blue Ridge Mountains]], which stretch from southern [[Pennsylvania]] in the north through [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] in the south]]The Appalachian region is generally considered the geographical divide between the [[East Coast of the United States|eastern seaboard]] of the United States and the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]] region of the country. The [[Eastern Continental Divide]] follows the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania to Georgia.