Part 1

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HISTORY

AND

COMPREHENSIVE DESCRIPTION

LOUDOUN COUNTY

VIRGINIA

JAMES W. HEAD

PARK VIEW PRESS

Copyright 1908 by JAMES W. HEAD

Dedication.

* * * * *

TO MY MOTHER,

WHOSE LOVE FOR LOUDOUN IS NOT LESS ARDENT AND UNDYING THAN MY OWN, THIS VOLUME, THE SINGLE AMBITION AND FONDEST ACHIEVEMENT OF MY LIFE, IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

"Loudoun County exemplifies country life in about the purest and pleasantest form that I have yet found in the United States. Not that it is a rural Utopia by any means, but the chief ideals of the life there are practically identical with those that have made country life in the English counties world-famous. As a type, this is, in fact, the real thing. No sham, no artificiality, no suspicion of mushroom growth, no evidence of exotic forcing are to be found in Loudoun, but the culmination of a century's development."

* * * * *

"So much, then, to show briefly that Loudoun County life is a little out of the ordinary, here in America, and hence worth talking about. There are other communities in Virginia and elsewhere that are worthy of eulogy, but I know of none that surpasses Loudoun in the dignity, sincerity, naturalness, completeness and genuine success of its country life."--WALTER A. DYER, in Country Life in America.

Table of Contents.

INTRODUCTION

Descriptive Department.

SITUATION

BOUNDARIES

TOPOGRAPHY

COMPARATIVE ALTITUDES

DRAINAGE

CLIMATE

GEOLOGY

Summary

Granite