GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE

4 GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL, TENNESSEE
GEOGRAPHY
TRANSPORTATION
North-central Tennessee is well served by primary transportation
routes. The main line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad passes
northward through Nashville and gives direct communication with
New Orleans and other Gulf ports and with Cincinnati. From
Bowling Green, Ky., a branch extends southwestward through Clarks-
ville, Tenn., to Memphis, on the Mississippi River. From its junc­
tion with the Southern Railway at Chattanooga the Nashville,
Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway runs northwestward to Nashville,
where it divides, one branch extending westward and northwestward
to join the Mississippi Valley trunk lines at Paducah, Ky., and the
other branch extending southwestward to Memphis. Numerous
branch lines serve the tributary territory. The Tennessee Central
Railway passes westward through the bituminous coal fields of the
Cumberland Mountains to Nashville and thence follows the Cumber­
land River northwestward through Clarksville to the terminus of
the railway at Hopkinsville, Ky. A small amount of local water-
borne traffic follows the Cumberland River.
A well-graded, hard-surfaced highway connects Knoxville and
Memphis, by way of Nashville, and crosses the area from southeast
to west. In addition, a net of excellent State highways links the
major towns and cities and is being woven ever closer.
NATURAL RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES
North-central Tennessee is primarily an agricultural region, the
fertile residual soils of the Highland Rim plateau being especially
productive of tobacco, corn, and other crops. Over much of the
central basin, however, the soil is thin and stony and is used for stock
pastures or remains untilled. The untillable land is wooded in con­
siderable part and yields large cuttings of cedar from the central
basin, also of oak and other hard woods from the steep slopes of the
Highland Run escarpment and of the major stream valleys.
Mineral resources are not lacking in this region. Deposits of rock
phosphate are worked at several localities in the central basin. Port­
land cement is manufactured in moderate amount at Nashville.
Limestone for road metal, lime, and other products is quarried at
many localities in the central basin and in the valleys that trench the
Highland Rim plateau. Local facies of the Chattanooga shale are
a possible raw material for bituminous paint. Deposits of brown
iron ore in the western portion of the Highland Rim plateau have
been worked during periods of favorable prices; those which fall
within the region covered by this report are situated in Stewart,
Montgomery, and Dickson Counties. Possible petroliferous areas