Tidewater Virginia
Is the eastern and southeastern part of the State that on the south borders
North Carolina 104 miles; on the east has an air-line border of 120 miles
along the Atlantic; on the west is bounded by 150 miles of the irregular
outline of the Middle Country—(this would be 164 miles if it took in the
mere edge of Tidewater along the Potomac up to Georgetown). The
shore line of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay for 140 miles,
and a line of 25 miles across the eastern shore, separate it from Maryland
on the north. The whole forms an irregular quadrilateral, averaging 114
miles in length from north to south, and 90 in width from east to west,
making an area of some 11,000 square miles.
The latitude is from 36° 33′ to 38° 54′ north, corresponding to that of
the countries bordering on the northern shores of the Mediterranean. The
longitude is from 75° 13′ to 77° 30′ west from Greenwich—that of Ontario,
in Canada, on the north, and of the Bahamas, Cuba, etc., on the south.
This is emphatically a tidewater country, since every portion of it is
penetrated by the tidal waters of Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers,
creeks, bays, and inlets. The united waters of nearly all this section, with
those that drain 40,000 more square miles of country, or the drainage of
50,000 square miles (an area equal to that of England), flow out through
the channel, 12 miles wide, between Capes Charles and Henry, and 50 or
60 miles from the land runs the ever-flowing Gulf Stream.
