cwh00220Geological map of the Potomac basin west of Blue Ridge,

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This map covers the Potomac River basin west of the Blue Ridge, the country around Harpers Ferry, where the river breaks through the mountains at the gap where the Shenandoah joins it. Maps like this one were a core tool of the 19th-century geological surveys, which recorded the bedrock, valleys, and ridges of the Appalachians as the country was opened to roads, rail, and mining. The region's folded sandstones, limestones, and shales, laid down over vast spans of time and then tilted and eroded, explain why the river runs where it does. Harpers Ferry was also the site of John Brown's 1859 raid on the federal armory, so the landscape shown here is one that later mattered to the nation's history as well.

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