Beaver
The beaver is a large nocturnal, semiaquatic rodent. Castor includes the North American beaver and Eurasian beaver. Beavers are known for building dams and lodges, they are the second-largest rodent in the world. Their colonies create one or more dams to provide still, deep water to protect against predators, to float food and building material; the North American beaver population as of 1988 was 6 -- 12 million. This population decline is the result of extensive hunting for fur, for glands used as medicine and perfume, because the beavers' harvesting of trees and flooding of waterways may interfere with other land uses. Beavers, along with pocket gophers and kangaroo rats, are castorimorph rodents, a suborder of rodents restricted to North America. Although just two related species exist today, beavers have a long fossil history in the Northern Hemisphere beginning in the Eocene, many species of giant beaver existed until quite such as Trogontherium in Europe, Castoroides in North America. Beavers are known for their natural trait of building dams on rivers and streams, building their homes in the resulting pond.
Beavers build canals to float building materials that are difficult to haul over land. They use powerful front teeth to cut trees and other plants that they use both for building and for food. In the absence of existing ponds, beavers must construct dams before building their lodges. First they place vertical poles fill between the poles with a crisscross of horizontally placed branches, they fill in the gaps between the branches with a combination of weeds and mud until the dam impounds sufficient water to surround the lodge. They are known for their alarm signal: when startled or frightened, a swimming beaver will dive while forcefully slapping the water with its broad tail, audible over great distances above and below water; this serves as a warning to beavers in the area. Once a beaver has sounded the alarm, nearby beavers may not reemerge for some time. Beavers are slow on land, but are good swimmers, can stay under water for as long as 15 minutes. Beavers do not hibernate; some of the pile is above water and accumulates snow in the winter.
This insulation of snow keeps the water from freezing in and around the food pile, providing a location where beavers can breathe when outside their lodge. Beavers have webbed hind-feet, a broad, scaly tail, they have poor eyesight, but keen senses of hearing and touch. A beaver's teeth grow continuously, their four incisors are composed of hard orange enamel on a softer dentin on the back. The chisel-like ends of incisors are maintained by their self-sharpening wear pattern; the enamel in a beaver's incisors contains iron and is more resistant to acid than enamel in the teeth of other mammals. Beavers continue to grow throughout their lives. Adult specimens weighing over 25 kg are not uncommon. Females are as large as or larger than males of the same age, uncommon among mammals. Beavers live up to 24 years of age in the wild; the English word "beaver" comes from the Old English word beofor or befer, which in turn sprang from the Proto-Germanic root *bebruz. Cognates in other Germanic languages include the Old Saxon bibar, the Old Norse bjorr, the Middle Dutch and Dutch bever, the Low German bever, the Old High German bibar and the Modern German Biber.
The Proto-Germanic word in turn came from the Proto-Indo-European word *bhebhrus, a reduplication of the PIE root *bher-, meaning "brown" or "bright", whose own descendants now include the Lithuanian bebras and the Czech bobr, as well as the Germanic forms. The North American and Eurasian beavers are the only extant members of the family Castoridae, contained in a single genus, Castor. Genetic research has shown the modern European and North American beaver populations to be distinct species and that hybridization is unlikely. Although superficially similar to each other, there are several important differences between the two species. Eurasian beavers tend to be larger, with larger, less rounded heads, narrower muzzles, thinner and lighter underfur, less oval-shaped tails and shorter shin bones, making them less capable of bipedal locomotion than the North American species. Eurasian beavers have longer nasal bones than their North American cousins, with the widest point being at the end of the snout for the former, in the middle for the latter.
The nasal opening for the Eurasian species is triangular, unlike that of the North American race, square. The foramen magnum is rounded in the Eurasian triangular in the North American; the anal glands of the Eurasian beaver are larger and thin-walled with a large internal volume compared to that of the North American species. The guard hairs of the Eurasian beaver have a longer hollow medulla at their tips. Fur colour is different. Overall, 66% of Eurasian beavers have pale brown or beige fur, 20% have reddish brown, nearly 8% are brown and only 4% have blackish coats. In North American beavers, 50% have pale brown fur, 25% are reddish brown, 20% are brown and 6% are blackish; the two species are not genetically compatible. North American beavers have 40 chromosomes, while Eurasian beavers have 48. More than 27 attempts were made in Russia to hybridize the two species, with one breeding between a male North American beaver and a female European resulting in a single stillborn kit. Thes
Tennessee
Tennessee is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, Missouri to the northwest; the Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, with a 2017 population of 667,560. Tennessee's second largest city is Memphis, which had a population of 652,236 in 2017; the state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was part of North Carolina, part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.
Occupied by Union forces from 1862, it was the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state besides Virginia, more soldiers for the Union Army than the rest of the Confederacy combined. Beginning during Reconstruction, it had competitive party politics, but a Democratic takeover in the late 1880s resulted in passage of disenfranchisement laws that excluded most blacks and many poor whites from voting; this reduced competition in politics in the state until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-20th century. In the 20th century, Tennessee transitioned from an agrarian economy to a more diversified economy, aided by massive federal investment in the Tennessee Valley Authority and, in the early 1940s, the city of Oak Ridge; this city was established to house the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities, helping to build the world's first atomic bombs, two of which were dropped on Imperial Japan near the end of World War II.
Tennessee's major industries include agriculture and tourism. Poultry and cattle are the state's primary agricultural products, major manufacturing exports include chemicals, transportation equipment, electrical equipment; the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation's most visited national park, is headquartered in the eastern part of the state, a section of the Appalachian Trail follows the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Other major tourist attractions include the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga; the earliest variant of the name that became Tennessee was recorded by Captain Juan Pardo, the Spanish explorer, when he and his men passed through an American Indian village named "Tanasqui" in 1567 while traveling inland from South Carolina. In the early 18th century, British traders encountered a Cherokee town named Tanasi in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee; the town was located on a river of the same name, appears on maps as early as 1725. It is not known whether this was the same town as the one encountered by Juan Pardo, although recent research suggests that Pardo's "Tanasqui" was located at the confluence of the Pigeon River and the French Broad River, near modern Newport.
The meaning and origin of the word are uncertain. Some accounts suggest, it has been said to mean "meeting place", "winding river", or "river of the great bend". According to ethnographer James Mooney, the name "can not be analyzed" and its meaning is lost; the modern spelling, Tennessee, is attributed to James Glen, the governor of South Carolina, who used this spelling in his official correspondence during the 1750s. The spelling was popularized by the publication of Henry Timberlake's "Draught of the Cherokee Country" in 1765. In 1788, North Carolina created "Tennessee County", the third county to be established in what is now Middle Tennessee; when a constitutional convention met in 1796 to organize a new state out of the Southwest Territory, it adopted "Tennessee" as the name of the state. Tennessee is known as The Volunteer State, a nickname some claimed was earned during the War of 1812 because of the prominent role played by volunteer soldiers from Tennessee during the Battle of New Orleans.
Other sources differ on the origin of the state nickname. This explanation is more because President Polk's call for 2,600 nationwide volunteers at the beginning of the Mexican–American War resulted in 30,000 volunteers from Tennessee alone in response to the death of Davy Crockett and appeals by former Tennessee Governor and Texas politician, Sam Houston. Tennessee borders eight other states: Virginia to the north. Tennessee is tied with Missouri as the state bordering the most other states; the state is trisected by the Tennessee River. The highest point in the state is Clingmans Dome at 6,643 feet (
Flathead catfish
The flathead catfish called by several names including mudcat or shovelhead cat, is a large species of North American freshwater catfish. It is the only species of the genus Pylodictis. Ranging from the lower Great Lakes region to northern Mexico, they have been introduced and are an invasive species in some areas; the closest living relative of the flathead is the widemouth blindcat, Satan eurystomus. The Flathead catfish is known as Yellow cat, Mud cat, Shovelhead cat, Johnnie cat, Goujon and Opelousas; the fish is called Pied cat and Mississippi cat. Flatheads grow to a length of 155 cm and may weigh up to 56 kg, making it the second-largest North American catfish; the average length is about 25-46 in. Their maximum recorded lifespan is 24 years. Males are mature from 16 cm and 4 years of age, while females mature from 18 cm and 5 years of age, but may mature as late as 10 years; the world angling record flathead catfish was caught May 14, 1998, from Elk City Reservoir and weighed 123 lb 9 oz, however a record from 1982 shows that the flathead catfish would be North Americas longest species of catfish, after a specimen pulled from the Arkansas river that measured 175 cm and weighed 63.45 kg.
Their native range includes a broad area west of the Appalachian Mountains encompassing large rivers of the Mississippi and Ohio basins. The range extends as far north as Canada, as far west as Texas, south to the Gulf of Mexico including northeastern Mexico. Flatheads cannot live in full-strength seawater, but they can survive 10 ppt for a while and thrive up to about 5 ppt. Flatheads prefer live prey, they are voracious carnivores and feed on other fish, annelid worms, crustaceans. Spawning occurs in late June and early July, the nests are made in areas with submerged logs and other debris; the males, which build the nests and tirelessly defend and fan the clutch. The size of the clutch varies proportionately to the size of the female; the fry frequent shallow areas with rocky and sandy substrates, where they feed on insects and worms such as annelids and polychaetes. Young flatheads are cannibalistic, which has precluded their presence in aquaculture. Inhabiting deep pools and large, slow-moving rivers, flathead catfish are popular among anglers.
Their size make the flatheads effective subjects of public aquaria. Sport fishing for flathead catfish using either rod and reel, limb lines, or bare hands can be an exciting pastime. Anglers target this species in a variety of waterways, including small rivers, large rivers, reservoirs. A common element of flathead catfish location is submerged wood cover such as logs and rootwads which collect at bends in rivers. A good flathead spot also includes deep water compared to the rest of a particular section of river, a moderate amount of current, access to plentiful baitfish such as river herring, carp, panfish, or suckers. Anglers targeting large flathead catfish use stout tackle such as medium-heavy or heavy action rods from 6–10 ft in length with large line-capacity reels and line ranging from 20–80 pounds-force test breaking strength. Large live baits are preferred such as river herring, sunfish, carp, goldfish and bullheads ranging from 5–12 in in length. List of fish common names Froese and Pauly, eds..
"Pylodictis olivaris" in FishBase. December 2011 version. "Pylodictis olivaris". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 30 January 2006. Species Profile- Flathead Catfish, National Invasive Species Information Center, United States National Agricultural Library. Lists general information and resources for Flathead Catfish
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west, Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east. North Carolina is the 28th-most extensive and the 9th-most populous of the U. S. states. The state is divided into 100 counties; the capital is Raleigh, which along with Durham and Chapel Hill is home to the largest research park in the United States. The most populous municipality is Charlotte, the second-largest banking center in the United States after New York City; the state has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet at Mount Mitchell, the highest point in North America east of the Mississippi River. The climate of the coastal plains is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate. Woodland-culture Native Americans were in the area around 1000 BCE.
During this time, important buildings were constructed as flat-topped buildings. By 1550, many groups of American Indians lived in present-day North Carolina, including Chowanoke, Pamlico, Coree, Cape Fear Indians, Waxhaw and Catawba. Juan Pardo explored the area in 1566–1567, establishing Fort San Juan in 1567 at the site of the Native American community of Joara, a Mississippian culture regional chiefdom in the western interior, near the present-day city of Morganton; the fort lasted only 18 months. A expedition by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe followed in 1584, at the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh. In June 1718, the pirate Blackbeard ran his flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, aground at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in present-day Carteret County. After the grounding her crew and supplies were transferred to smaller ships. In November, after appealing to the governor of North Carolina, who promised safe-haven and a pardon, Blackbeard was killed in an ambush by troops from Virginia.
In 1996 Intersal, Inc. a private firm, discovered the remains of a vessel to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, added to the US National Register of Historic Places. North Carolina became one of the English Thirteen Colonies and with the territory of South Carolina was known as the Province of North-Carolina; the northern and southern parts of the original province separated in 1729. Settled by small farmers, sometimes having a few slaves, who were oriented toward subsistence agriculture, the colony lacked cities or towns. Pirates menaced the coastal settlements. Growth was strong in the middle of the 18th century, as the economy attracted Scots-Irish, Quaker and German immigrants. A majority of the colonists supported the American Revolution, a smaller number of Loyalists than in some other colonies such as Georgia, South Carolina, New York. During colonial times, Edenton served as the state capital beginning in 1722, New Bern was selected as the capital in 1766. Construction of Tryon Palace, which served as the residence and offices of the provincial governor William Tryon, began in 1767 and was completed in 1771.
In 1788 Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital, as its central location protected it from coastal attacks. Established in 1792 as both county seat and state capital, the city was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island; the population of the colony more than quadrupled from 52,000 in 1740 to 270,000 in 1780 from high immigration from Virginia and Pennsylvania plus immigrants from abroad. North Carolina made the smallest per-capita contribution to the war of any state, as only 7,800 men joined the Continental Army under General George Washington. There was some military action in 1780–81. Many Carolinian frontiersmen had moved west over the mountains, into the Washington District, but in 1789, following the Revolution, the state was persuaded to relinquish its claim to the western lands, it ceded them to the national government so that the Northwest Territory could be organized and managed nationally. After 1800, cotton and tobacco became important export crops.
The eastern half of the state the Tidewater region, developed a slave society based on a plantation system and slave labor. Many free people of color migrated to the frontier along with their European-American neighbors, where the social system was looser. By 1810, nearly 3 percent of the free population consisted of free people of color, who numbered more than 10,000; the western areas were dominated by white families Scots-Irish, who operated small subsistence farms. In the early national period, the state became a center of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, with a strong Whig presence in the West. After Nat Turner's slave uprising in 1831, North Carolina and other southern states reduced the rights of free blacks. In 1835 the legislature withdrew their right to vote. On May 20, 1861, North Carolina was the last of the Confederate states to declare secession from the Union, 13 days after the Tennessee legislature voted for secession; some 125,000 North Carolinians served in the military.
Alligator
An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. The two living species are the Chinese alligator. Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the Oligocene epoch about 37 million years ago; the name "alligator" is an anglicized form of el lagarto, the Spanish term for "the lizard", which early Spanish explorers and settlers in Florida called the alligator. English spellings of the name included allagarta and alagarto. An average adult American alligator's weight and length is 360 kg and 4 m, but they sometimes grow to 4.4 m long and weigh over 450 kg. The largest recorded, found in Louisiana, measured 5.84 m. The Chinese alligator is smaller exceeding 2.1 m in length. Additionally, it weighs less, with males over 45 kg. Adult alligators are black or dark olive-brown with white undersides, while juveniles have contrasting white or yellow marks which fade with age. No average lifespan for an alligator has been measured.
In 1937, an adult specimen was brought to the Belgrade Zoo in Serbia from Germany. It is now at least 80 years old. Although no valid records exist about its date of birth, this alligator named Muja, is considered the oldest alligator living in captivity. †Alligator mcgrewi †Alligator mefferdi †Alligator olseni †Alligator prenasalis Alligators are native to only the United States and China. American alligators are found in the southeast United States: all of Louisiana. According to the 2005 Scholastic Book of World Records, Louisiana has the largest alligator population; the majority of American alligators inhabit Florida and Louisiana, with over a million alligators in each state. Southern Florida is the only place where both crocodiles live side by side. American alligators live in freshwater environments, such as ponds, wetlands, rivers and swamps, as well as in brackish water; when they construct alligator holes in the wetlands, they increase plant diversity and provide habitat for other animals during droughts.
They are, considered an important species for maintaining ecological diversity in wetlands. Farther west, in Louisiana, heavy grazing by coypu and muskrat are causing severe damage to coastal wetlands. Large alligators feed extensively on coypu, provide a vital ecological service by reducing coypu numbers; the Chinese alligator is found in only the Yangtze River valley and parts of adjacent provinces and is endangered, with only a few dozen believed to be left in the wild. Indeed, far more Chinese alligators live in zoos around the world. Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in southern Louisiana has several in captivity in an attempt to preserve the species. Miami MetroZoo in Florida has a breeding pair of Chinese alligators. Large male alligators are solitary territorial animals. Smaller alligators can be found in large numbers close to each other; the largest of the species defend prime territory. Alligators move on land by two forms of locomotion referred to as "sprawl" and "high walk"; the sprawl is a forward movement with the belly making contact with the ground and is used to transition to "high walk" or to slither over wet substrate into water.
The high walk is an up on four limbs forward motion used for overland travel with the belly well up from the ground. Alligators have been observed to rise up and balance on their hind legs and semi-step forward as part of a forward or upward lunge; however they can not walk on their hind legs for long distances. Although the alligator has a heavy body and a slow metabolism, it is capable of short bursts of speed in short lunges. Alligators' main prey are smaller animals they can eat with a single bite, they may kill larger prey by dragging it into the water to drown. Alligators consume food that cannot be eaten in one bite by allowing it to rot, or by biting and spinning or convulsing wildly until bite-sized chunks are torn off; this is referred to as a "death roll". Critical to the alligator's ability to initiate a death roll, the tail must flex to a significant angle relative to its body. An alligator with an immobilized tail cannot perform a death roll. Most of the muscle in an alligator's jaw evolved to grip prey.
The muscles that close the jaws are exceptionally powerful, but the muscles for opening their jaws are comparatively weak. As a result, an adult human can hold an alligator's jaws shut bare-handed, it is common today to use several wraps of duct tape to prevent an adult alligator from opening its jaws when being handled or transported. Alligators are timid towards humans and tend to walk or swim away if one approaches; this has led some people to the practice of approaching alligators and their nests in a manner that may provoke the animals into attacking. In Florida, feeding wild alligators at any time is illegal. If fed, the alligators will lose their fear of humans and will learn to associate humans with food, thereby becoming both a greater danger to people, at greater risk from them; the type of food eaten by alligators depends upon their size. When young, alligators eat fish, snails and worms; as they mature, progressively larger prey is taken, including larger fish such as gar and various
Chelydridae
The Chelydridae are a family of turtles that has seven extinct and two extant genera. The extant genera are the snapping turtles Macrochelys. Both are endemic to the Western Hemisphere; the extinct genera are Acherontemys, Chelydropsis, Macrocephalochelys and Protochelydra. The Chelydridae have a long fossil history, with extinct species reported from North America as well as all over Asia and Europe, far outside their present range; the earliest described chelydrid is Emarginachelys cretacea, known from well-preserved fossils from the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous of Montana. Another well-preserved fossil chelydrid is the Late Paleocene Protochelydra zangerli from North Dakota; the carapace of P. zangerli is higher domed than that of the recent Chelydra, a trait conjectured to be associated with the coexistence of large, chelonivorous crocodilians. Another genus, contains several well-known Eurasian chelydrid species that existed from the Oligocene to the Pliocene. In South America, chelydrids only occupy the northwestern corner of the continent, reflecting their recent arrival from Central America as part of the Great American Interchange. de Broin, F..
Contribution a l’etude des cheloniens. Cheloniens continentaux du Cretace Superieur et du Tertiaire de France. Memoires du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Vol. C, No. XXVIII. Ericson, B. R.. A new chelydrid turtle, from the late Paleocene of North Dakota. Scientific Publications of the Science Museum of Minnesota, New Series. 2:1-16. Gaffney, E. S.. Phylogeny of the chelydrid turtles: a study of shared derived characters in the skull. Fieldiana Geology 33:157-178. Parham, J. F. C. R. Feldman, J. R. Boore; the complete mitochondrial genome of the enigmatic bigheaded turtle: description of unusual genomic features and the reconciliation of phylogenetic hypotheses based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. BMC Evol Biol. 6: 11. Published online February 7, 2006. Doi:10.1186/1471-2148-6-11. Whetstone, K. N.. A new genus of cryptodiran turtles from the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of Montana; the University of Kansas Science Bulletin 51:539-563
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state located in the Appalachian region in the Southern United States, considered to be a part of the Middle Atlantic States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Maryland to the east and northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 41st largest state by area, is ranked 38th in population; the capital and largest city is Charleston. West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions of 1861, after the American Civil War had begun. Delegates from some Unionist counties of northwestern Virginia decided to break away from Virginia, although they included many secessionist counties in the new state. West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, was a key border state during the war. West Virginia was the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, the first to separate from any state since Maine separated from Massachusetts, was one of two states admitted to the Union during the American Civil War.
While a portion of its residents held slaves, most of the residents were yeomen farmers, the delegates provided for gradual abolition of slavery in the new state Constitution. The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States; however the Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies West Virginia as a part of the Mid-Atlantic. The northern panhandle extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio, with the West Virginia cities of Wheeling and Weirton just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, while Bluefield is less than 70 miles from North Carolina. Huntington in the southwest is close to the states of Ohio and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Panhandle region are considered part of the Washington metropolitan area, in between the states of Maryland and Virginia; the unique position of West Virginia means that it is included in several geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, the Southeastern United States.
It is the only state, within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission. The state is noted for its mountains and rolling hills, its significant logging and coal mining industries, its political and labor history, it is known for a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, including skiing, whitewater rafting, hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, hunting. Many ancient man-made earthen mounds from various prehistoric mound builder cultures survive in the areas of present-day Moundsville, South Charleston, Romney; the artifacts uncovered in these give evidence of village societies. They had a tribal trade system culture. In the 1670s during the Beaver Wars, the powerful Iroquois, five allied nations based in present-day New York and Pennsylvania, drove out other American Indian tribes from the region in order to reserve the upper Ohio Valley as a hunting ground. Siouan language tribes, such as the Moneton, had been recorded in the area. A century the area now identified as West Virginia was contested territory among Anglo-Americans as well, with the colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia claiming territorial rights under their colonial charters to this area before the American Revolutionary War.
Some speculative land companies, such as the Vandalia Company, the Ohio Company and Indiana Company, tried to legitimize their claims to land in parts of West Virginia and present day Kentucky, but failed. This rivalry resulted in some settlers petitioning the Continental Congress to create a new territory called Westsylvania. With the federal settlement of the Pennsylvania and Virginia border dispute, creating Kentucky County, Kentuckians "were satisfied, the inhabitants of a large part of West Virginia were grateful."The Crown considered the area of West Virginia to be part of the British Virginia Colony from 1607 to 1776. The United States considered this area to be the western part of the state of Virginia from 1776 to 1863, before the formation of West Virginia, its residents were discontented for years with their position in Virginia, as the government was dominated by the planter elite of the Tidewater and Piedmont areas. The legislature had electoral malapportionment, based on the counting of slaves toward regional populations, the western white residents were underrepresented in the state legislature.
More subsistence and yeoman farmers lived in the west and they were less supportive of slavery, although many counties were divided on their support. The residents of this area became more divided after the planter elite of eastern Virginia voted to secede from the Union during the Civil War. Residents of the western and northern counties set up a separate government under Francis Pierpont in 1861, which they called the Restored Government. Most voted to separate from Virginia, the new state was admitted to the Union in 1863. In 1864 a state constitutional convention drafted a constitution, ratified by the legislature without putting it to popular vote. West Virginia abolished slavery by a gradual process and temporarily disenfranchised men who had held Confederate office or fought for the Confederacy. West Virginia's history has been profoundly affected by its mountainous terrain and vast river valleys, rich natural resources; these were all factors driving its economy and the lifestyles of its residents, who tended to live in many small isolated communities in the mountain valleys.
A 2010 analysis of
