Unlike George Washington, I can tell a lie, which to me means I am more talented in this area than he was. But my problem is that I cannot tell a lie that people will believe for long. They just don't last that long. So that my credibility problem won't continue on this issue, I want to take back my statement that I started the Elk River. In the place of that one, I want to quote from page 17 (the first page of Chapter One) of W.E.R. Byrne's Tale of the Elk. "The Elk is formed by the junction of the Big Spring Fork and the Old field Fork in Pocahontas County, 166 miles about its mouth at Charleston, at an elevation above sea level of 2,670 feet or 2,070 feet above the capital city. . . .The valleys of both Big Spring Fork and Old Field extend about nine miles above the Forks and though gashed deep in the strata and walled high by the great mountains forming the watershed between the Elk and Greenbrier on the East, The Tygarts Valley to the north and the Gauley and the Williams to the west and south, nevertheless their beds are devoid of water running above the ground but for short stretches here and there, except during the freshet (sic.) seasons, the channel and outlet being subterranean." Question: If you can't see water running, is it a stream? -- dhamrick@neo.rr.com Dan Hamrick 402 23rd Street NW Canton OH 44709 Phone: 330-454-2376