At 10:37 AM 2/24/2009, Minton, Mark wrote:
>I thought West Texas was everything west of the Pecos and east Texas >was everything east with the exception of Houston which is considered >no-mans land. You left out Central Texas, where the center of the caving universe is!
As a trained, professional geographer (which qualifies me, along with 6-bits worth of money, to ride on most any city bus) I have an opinion or two on that. But first:
Terms like East Texas, West Texas, Southwest Texas, and North Central Texas define some nebulous and often dynamic regions oriented to generalized compass directions. These terms are often interspersed by both geographers and non-geographers in trying to define geographic regions with somewhat less nebulous terms such as High Plains and Coastal Bend. You can see that the two sets of terms are not comparable. We should use either directional terms (which with a state shaped like Texas is a bit of a stretch) or we should use topographical terms (which are more descriptive of what's really there). Or we could just color in the voting precincts and refer to them as red or blue or yellow regions of the State.
Based on humidity, vegetation, and other factors, it can be considered that the eastward limits of West Texas can sometimes reach as far as Kerrville--but not always. It swings back and forth a good bit along with the related meteorlogical phenomenon known as a 'dry line' and shares, from time-to-time, parts of what is called The Hill Country with Central Texas. (Recall that The Hill Country and West Texas are not in parallel competition with each other, so can share territory.) To the west it extends nearly to Tucson, although some of our caver associates (non-geographers) claim it stops at Midland--the rest to the west being a nominal part of either Mexico or New Mexico--I can't remember which. The question always arises in my mind as to how far north West Texas extends. Does it include the Pan Handle?
Or is that North Texas? It is generally conceded, I think, that Dallas and Forth Wort, and those menial towns up near the Red River represent North Texas while the Pan Handle, which is farther north, does not. 'Splain that if you can. If you pointed your compass in the direction of the Pan Handle it would render north west, yet I don't think that term is commonly applied to it. But, maybe?
Neither does North Texas extend eastward into East Texas which is at the same latitude and, again, I think, considered to be that great humid area of black gumbo mud and tall mixed forest that extends west pretty much as a continuation of Louisiana about as far west as the trees do. The fact that The Great Plains also begin at that spot is not a factor of compass direction but vegetation (and perhaps soil type) and otherwise unrelated. Now I guess that there's a little area up there north of the gumbo but still in the trees that's called Northeast Texas by some on account of not wanting to leave out any of the cardinal directions and winding up with a hole in the map. Being close to Arkansas there's a lot of confusion rampant thereabouts. And East Texas extends south a bit lower than Houston, encroaching well into the lower latitudes, but not the terrain, of Central Texas
South Texas is pretty much everything south of an east-west line running through some arbitrary part of San Antonio--say the Balcones Escarpment. North of that is Central Texas and, coincidentally, The Hill Country (all 3 always capitalized). Now, where South Texas and West Texas delineate themselves could be hard to put ones foot or finger on--even were one to have large hands and feet. It's out there somewhere in what we might oughta rightly call Southwest Texas, but can't really define that either without a few stout drinks. (One thing is certain--the college formerly called Southwest Texas State(SWTSTC) was nowhere near that part of the State.)
That leaves only the Coastal Plain, nominally running from Brownsville to Port O'Connor (as they say in the hurricane weather warnings), to be given a direction--obviously Southeast Texas, as that direction is otherwise unasigned and probably more correctly occupied by the Gulf of Mexico which can't be renamed. But it overlaps both South Texas and East Texas at its extremes, both of which exhibit some (sometimes significant, sometimes not) climatic differences.
Now, there you have it; if you have questions please keep them to yourself. ...and excuse my broken spell checker, por favor. --Ediger --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
