Let us now turn our backs to the Chickamauga Lake for a glimpse
towards the west. To the southwest, we see Lookout Mountain standing
like a bright cameo in a position as if it were looking down on
Chattanooga. To our right, we view the head of another rocky monster
that is looking southward. This is Signal Mountain, which is simply
the local name for the southern end of Waldens Ridge. A little to
our left, in the background between Signal and Lookout Mountains,
stands Raccoon Mountain. These are parts of the Cumberlands and are
plateaus, each of them being quite flat on its top. Their average
altitude is approximately 2,000 feet above the sea. The Cumberlands
were so named by Dr. Thomas Walker in 1748 in honor of the Duke of
Cumberland, William Augustus, who two years previous had defeated the
Scotch in the battle of Culloden. Following that bloody event, the
Duke was so bitterly hated that the early Scotch settlers in America
refused to call the mountains by the name _Cumberland_, preferring to
speak of them by their Cherokee name _Ouisoto Mountains_, (pronounced
We-soto).
If we could leap like a giant kangaroo, the first kick of our hind
legs down the Tennessee River would leave us standing on the dam at
Hales Bar, forty miles from here. Another leap of eighty-two miles
and we would rest on Guntersville Dam in Alabama. Our third leap
would take us seventy-four miles farther on where we would strike
the Wheeler Dam. Next a kitten’s spring of only sixteen miles and we
would strike the Wilson Dam. A sudden jump of 52 miles would leave
us astride the Pickwick Dam, and then a tremendous long leap of 184
miles and we would find ourselves perched on the Kentucky Dam, only
twenty-three miles from the mouth of the Tennessee River at Paducah,
Kentucky. If we chose to continue the journey to the mouth of the
river we would find ourselves 471 miles from where we now stand on
the Chickamauga Dam.
[Illustration:
DIAGRAM OF
TVA
WATER CONTROL
SYSTEM