Abstract:
The wall in the title refers to the area in North Carolina where the soft sedimentary rock of the Coastal Plain meets the hard crystalline rock of the Piedmont. Such a meeting causes river rapids, such as Smiley's Falls in the Cape Fear River. For merchants and farmers living upstream in the 19th-century, the rapids blocked commercial traffic and goods from getting to market. Earley describes North Carolina's effort to overcome the rapids and open the river to traffic.