raising indigo; It long conducted a school (discontinued during the Civil War) which eventually became part of the city’s public school system. In 1780 Georgetown was occupied by a body of Loyalist troops, with whom the American troops had several skirmishes, but on the 10th of August 1781 General Francis Marion forced the evacuation of the town and took possession of it. A few days later, an American named Manson, who had joined the British forces, attacked the town from an armed vessel, and burned about forty houses, the small body of militia being unable to make an effective resistance. General Lafayette first landed on American soil at Georgetown on the 24th of April 1777. Georgetown was incorporated as a town in 1805, and was chartered as a city in 1895.
GEORGETOWN, a city and the county-seat of Williamson county, Texas, U.S.A., on the San Gabriel river, about 25 m. N. by E. of Austin. Pop. (1890) 2447; (1900) 2790 (608 negroes); (1910) 3096. The city is served by the International & Great Northern, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. Georgetown is the seat of the Southwestern University (Methodist Episcopal, South, co-educational), formed in 1873 (chartered 1875) by the combination of Ruterville College (Methodist Episcopal, at Ruterville, Texas, chartered in 1840, and closed in 1850), McKenzie College (at Clarksville, Texas, founded in 1841 and closed in 1872), Wesleyan College at San Augustine (chartered in 1844, burned a few years later, and not rebuilt), and Soule University at Chapel Hill (chartered in 1856, but closed in 1870). The university includes a fitting school at Georgetown, and a medical department at Dallas, Texas; in 1909 it had an enrolment of 1037 students. The principal manufactures of Georgetown are cotton and cotton-seed oil, and planing-mill products. In Page Park are mineral springs, whose waters have medicinal qualities similar to the famous Karlsbad waters. The first settlement was made here in 1848; and Georgetown was incorporated as a town in 1866, and was chartered as a city in 1890.
GEORGIA, a southern state of the United States of America, one of the thirteen original states, situated between 30° 31′ 39″ and 35° N., and between 81° and 85° 53′ 38″ W. It is bounded N. by Tennessee and North Carolina, E. by South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean, S. by Florida, and W. by Alabama. The total area of the state is 59,265 sq. m., of which 540 sq. m. are water surface.
The surface of Georgia is divided into five physiographic zones. From the sea coast, which is skirted by fertile, semi-tropical islands, a plain of 35,000 sq. m., known as South Georgia, extends northward to the “fall-line” passing from Augusta, through Milledgeville and Macon, to Columbus. This is a part of the great Atlantic Coastal Plain. For 20 m. from the coast its elevation is 10 ft., then it rises abruptly 70 ft. higher, and 20 m. farther N. another elevation begins, which reaches 575 ft. at Milledgeville, the average elevation of the entire region being 250 ft. North of the line mentioned, and collectively known as North Georgia, are the four other regions, each with well-defined characteristics. The largest and southernmost, a broad belt extending from the “fall-line” to a line passing through Clarkesville, Habersham county, Cartersville, Bartow county and Buchanan, Haralson county (approximately), is known as the Piedmont Belt or Plateau, being a region of faint relief eroded on highly complicated crystalline rocks. The Blue Ridge escarpment, a striking topographic feature in Virginia and the Carolinas, extends into Georgia along the north-eastern border of this belt, but is less strongly developed here than elsewhere, dying out entirely towards the south-west. North of the Piedmont Belt lie the Appalachian Mountains Region and the Great Valley Region, the former to the east, the latter to the west of a dividing line from Cartersville northward. The former region consists of detached mountain masses of crystalline rocks, not yet eroded down to the level of the Piedmont Belt. In Towns county, in the Appalachian Region, is the highest point in the state, Brasstown Bald, also called Enota Mountain (4768 ft.). The Great Valley Region consists of folded sedimentary rocks, extensive erosion having removed the soft layers to form valleys, leaving the hard layers as ridges, both layers running in a N.E.-S.W. direction. In the extreme north-west corner of the state is a small part of the Cumberland Plateau, represented by Lookout and Sand Mts.
On the Blue Ridge escarpment near the N.E. corner of the state is a water-parting separating the waters which find their way respectively N.W. to the Tennessee river, S.W. to the Gulf of Mexico and S.E. to the Atlantic Ocean; indeed, according to B. M. and M. R. Hall (Water Resources of Georgia, p. 2), “there are three springs in north-east Georgia within a stone’s throw of each other that send out their waters to Savannah, Ga., to Apalachicola, Fla., and to New Orleans, La.” The water-parting between the waters flowing into the Atlantic and those flowing into the Gulf extends from this point first S.E. for a few miles, then turns S.W. to Atlanta, and from there extends S.S.E. to the Florida line. West of where the escarpment dies out, the Great Valley Region and a considerable portion of the Appalachian Mountains Region are drained by the Coosa, the Tallapoosa and their tributaries, into Mobile Bay, but the Cumberland Plateau, like that part of the Appalachian Mountains Region which lies directly N. of the Blue Ridge escarpment, constitutes a part of the Tennessee Basin. The principal rivers of the state are the Chattahoochee and the Flint, which unite in the S.W. corner to form the Apalachicola; the Ocmulgee (whose western tributary, the Towaliga, falls 96 ft. in less than a quarter of a mile), and the Oconee, which unite in the S.E. to form the Altamaha; and the Savannah, which forms the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina. All of these rise in the upper part of the Piedmont Plateau, through which they pursue a rapid course over rocky beds, and are navigable only south of the “fall-line,” at which and north of which they furnish an abundance of water-power. The upper Savannah river first flows S.W., then turns abruptly S.E., while the Chattahoochee river rises near this point and continues S.W. This is because the upper Savannah[1] was formerly part of the Chattahoochee, but was captured and turned S.E. by headward growth of the Savannah. As a result of the capture there is a deep gorge along the upper Savannah, especially along the branch called the Tallulah river; and the upper Tallulah, in a series of cascades, 223 m. long, falls 525 ft. from the former higher level down to the main bed of the upper Savannah, at Tallulah Falls, a summer resort.
The fauna and flora have no distinctive features. (See United States.)
Climate and Soils.—The climate of Georgia, though temperate, differs considerably in different parts of the state. All the nine climate belts in the United States, except that of southern Florida, are represented within its borders. The lowest mean annual temperature, 40° F. and below, is that of some of the mountain tops of northern Georgia; from the mountain-sides to the Piedmont Plateau this mean temperature varies from 45° to 60°; on the Piedmont Plateau from 60° to 65°; and on the Coastal Plain from 60° to 70°. The July isotherm of 80° crosses the state a little N. of Augusta and Macon, touching the W. boundary at West Point, Troup county. The mean July temperature for the whole state is 81.8°; for the part S. of the 80° isotherm the average temperature for July is between 80° and 85°. The average rainfall for the state is 49.3 in.; the maximum is 71.7 in., at Rabun Gap in the extreme N.E. part of the state; the minimum is 39.4 at Swainsboro, Emanuel county, a little S.E. of the centre of the state.
Georgia is also notable for the variety of its soils. In the Cumberland Plateau and Great Valley Regions are a red or brown loam, rich in decomposed limestone and calcareous shales, and sandy or gravelly loams. In the Piedmont Plateau and Appalachian Mountains Regions the surface soil is generally sandy, but in considerable areas the subsoil is a red clay derived largely from the decomposition of hornblende. By far the greatest variety of soils is found in the Coastal Plain Region. Here the Central Cotton Belt, extending from the “fall-line” as far S. as a line bisecting Early county in the W. and passing through Baker, Worth, Dooly, Dodge, Laurens, Johnson, Jefferson and Burke counties, has three distinct kinds of soil; a sand, forming what is known as the sand-hill region; red clay derived from silicious rock in the red hills; and grey, sandy soils with a subsoil of yellow loam. South of the Cotton Belt is the Lime Sink Region, which includes Miller, Baker, Mitchell, Colquitt and Worth counties, the northern portions of Decatur, Grady, Thomas, Brooks and Lowndes, the eastern parts of Dooly and Lee, and the eastern portions of Berrien, Irwin, Wilcox, Dodge, and some parts of Burke, Screven and Bulloch. The soft limestone underlying this region is covered, in the uplands, with grey, sandy soils, which have a subsoil of loam; in the lowlands the surface soils are loams, the subsoils clays. Adjoining this region are the pine barrens, which extend S. to a line passing through the northern portions of Pierce, Wayne, Liberty, Bryan
- ↑ According to the usual nomenclature, the branch flowing S.W. is called the Chattooga; this unites with the Tallulah to form the Tugaloo, which in turn unites with the Kiowee to form the Savannah proper.
