The Blacksburg Area as herein described is that portion of Montgomery County, Virginia, which comprises the north third of the Blacksburg Quadrangle. This Quadrangle is the southwest quarter of the Christiansburg topographic sheet published by the United States Geological Survey in 1890. The region is in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains. It is bounded by latitudes N. 37° 15' and N. 37° 10' and by longitudes W. 80° 30' and W. 80° 15', an area of approximately seventy-eight square miles. The east-west dimension is 13.8 miles and the north-south dimension is 5.7 miles. The town of Blacksburg, which is the location or the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, is within this area and is at longitude W. 80° 30' near the northern boundary of the area. The region is traversed in a north-south direction by state highway number 8 connecting the Lee Highway, U.S. 11, at Christiansburg, with Princeton, West Virginia, and main U.S. Highways to the west. A spur of the Norfolk am Western Railway connects Blacksburg with the main line at Christiansburg. The town of Shawsville is located in the extreme southeastern corner of the area. The main line of the Norfolk and Western Railway as well as U.S. Highway 11 pass through this town. They both connect that portion of the area with Roanoke, Virginia, and the eastern seaboard, with East Radford, Virginia, the Pocahontas Coal Fields and other points west to the Mississippi Valley. The main line at the Virginian Railway traverses the entire region from east to west, following the North Fork of the Roanoke River from Ironto to Ellett and from there westward by way of Merrimac. This railway, like the Norfolk and Western, is a connecting link between the Atlantic Seaboard at Norfolk, and the West Virginia Coal Fields by way of Roanoke. The Blacksburg Area is consequently readily accessible from most any direction by rail or by road, although within the area it is quite rugged and a few localities are none too easily reached. / Master of Science

The average individual is well aware of the need for ample supplies of water for domestic consumption and industrial use, for transportation, power, irrigation, and for recreation. Few, however, realize the scarcity and the value of this most versatile of a nation’s resources. The false impression of abundance that has long existed, created a certain sense of values which permitted misuse and abuse of the nation's supply of water. Increasing population and vast industrial growth leave created conditions that citizens can no longer ignore. In recent years considerable public opinion has been directed to the undesirable effects of extensive domestic and industrial pollution of the nation's waters. New legislation designed to control the uses of the country's waters and the abatement of pollution have been initiated and other programs arc proposed from time to time as public support increases. This thesis was designed to add to that fund of data upon which intelligent programs must necessarily be based. It presents some of the chemical, biological and physical aspects of a small, highly polluted stream, and an attempt was made to correlate the collected data sith the available information on the subjects involved. / Master of Science

Memory Childhood Walking the long, winding dirt road to our home. The road is flanked by pine, birch, fern, occasioned by bold jack-in-the-pulpit and fire-red newts. Underfoot, stones roll and skitter. Each stone, solid, whole, each, an open eye, feigning sleep. Holding secret its very center. Dream Powerful in its simplicity. One stark picture frame. Like a billboard in an endless landscape, it comes between two other dreams. It is the cross section of a stone. Thin skinned and ordinary on the outside. Obsidian black inside, with a cube of transparent crystal rising in the center. Once a dream. Now a talisman. / Master of Architecture

The Christiansburg map area consists of about 19 square miles in Montgomery County, Virginia, and is underlain by sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Middle Cambrian to Middle Ordovician. Post-Ordovician strata have been eliminated by thrusting and erosion. From south to north the rocks belong to five fault blocks: the Max Meadows, Pulaski, Saltville, Salem, and Catawba blocks. The Max Meadows block contains only the Middle Cambrian Rome Formation, the oldest rocks exposed within the area. The parautochthonous Saltville block includes rocks from Upper Cambrian to Middle Ordovician in age, which are exposed in windows of the Pulaski fault block. The Pulaski block contains highly fractured and brecciated Cambrian carbonates. The Salem block contains rocks ranging in age from Middle Cambrian to Lower Ordovician. The Salem fault terminates west of Christiansburg, Virginia. Rocks of the Catawba block range from Middle Cambrian to Mississippian in age, but only the section up to the Middle Ordovician is exposed in the map area. The windows through the Pulaski thrust sheet expose the large Christiansburg anticlinorium of the Saltville fault block. The size of each window is proportional to the size of the anticlinal fold developed on the crestal portion of the anticlinorium. The faulting may have occurred shortly after deposition of the Mississippian strata exposed in the Price Mountain window north of the area. The apparent parallelism of the thrust sheets and the overridden strata indicates that much of the present structural relief was formed after emplacement of the thrust sheets. / Master of Science

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict locations of urban change at a countywide level by testing various calibrations of the Land Transformation Model (LTM). It utilizes the Stuttgart Neural Network Simulator (SNNS), a common medium through which ANNs run a back-propagation algorithm, to execute neural net training. This research explores the dynamics of socioeconomic and biophysical variables (derived from the 1990 Comprehensive Plan) and how they affect model calibration for Montgomery County, Virginia. Using NLCD Retrofit Land Use data for 1992 and 2001 as base layers for urban change, we assess the sensitivity of the model with policy-influenced variables from data layers representing road accessibility, proximity to urban lands, distance from urban expansion areas, slopes, and soils. Aerial imagery from 1991 and 2002 was used to visually assess changes at site-specific locations. Results show a percent correct metric (PCM) of 32.843% and a Kappa value of 0.319. A relative operating characteristic (ROC) value of 0.660 showed that the model predicted locations of change better than chance (0.50). It performs consistently when compared to PCMs from a logistic regression model, 31.752%, and LTMs run in the absence of each driving variable ranging 27.971% – 33.494%. These figures are similar to results from other land use and land cover change (LUCC) studies sharing comparable landscape characteristics. Prediction maps resulting from LTM forecasts driven by the six variables tested provide a satisfactory means for forecasting change inside of dense urban areas and urban fringes for countywide urban planning. / Master of Science

Master of Science

The conclusion of this investigation, based on field mapping and measured sections, is the Price Formation was deposited on a high-energy shoreline. Sediments for the shoreline were initially transported from a northern deltaic source. The Cloyd Conglomerate Member represents offshore barrier bars, while the Lower Price unit was deposited in a lagoon behind the bars. At the top of the Lower Price unit, the "marker bed" sandstone includes sedimentary features of marine and fluvial origin. This sandstone is interpreted as a delta-front sand, reworked from distributary mouth bars. The Langhorn and Merrimac coal seams were deposited in swamps formed across the sandstone. / Master of Science

The problem of driving and drinking has been examined in terms of prevention, enforcement, punishment, and education. From the sale of alcoholic beverages, it remains apparent that people will continue to drink and problems associated with that behavior will persist. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the judges in Montgomery County, Virginia, treated defendants brought to court for driving while under the influence of alcohol or driving on a license suspended due to alcohol abuse from July, 1982 through September, 1983. An analysis of the role played by the Montgomery County, Virginia, judges in the driving and drinking problem has shown that there were significant differences in the (number of continuations allowed, the type of verdict granted, and the form of punishment given. Defendants arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol were much more likely to receive a guilty verdict (81%) than were people arrested for driving on a license suspended due to alcohol abuse (34%). These same judges were consistent in their treatment of male and female defendants in all areas except punishment where it was found that no females went to jail. Personal interviews with the judges substantiated the statistical results, but of even more significance was the accent placed on educating both the public, beginning in elementary school, and the drunk driver. Many recommendations for further research and further action were presented. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata

M. S.

There is a gap in existing literature in regards to the role of community in understanding the motivations of Civil War soldiers. Current historiographical studies try to apply the same motivational factors to entire states, armies, or to all Union or Confederate soldiers in general. Some historians even attempt to show that regardless of Union or Confederate, soldiers' motivations were similar due to a shared American identity. This thesis explores a community in the mountain valleys of present-day Southwest Virginia, which stayed loyal to Richmond and the Confederacy. This case study of Montgomery County illustrates that enlistment motivations varied based on a mixture of internal and external factors distinctive to a soldier's community; therefore, there cannot be a representative sample of the Confederate Army that covers all the nuances that makes each community unique. Enlistment was both a personal decision and one influenced by the environment. Montgomery County soldiers were the product of their community that included external factors such as slavery, occupation, and class, and internal ideological themes such as honor, masculinity, and patriotism, that compelled them to enlist in the Confederate Army in the first year of the war, April 1861 through April 1862. These men enlisted to protect their status quo when it was convenient for them to leave their home and occupation, and if they had fewer family obligations. / Master of Arts