The Teays River was an important pre-glacial river that drained much of the area now drained by the Ohio River, and more. It was largely coincident with the New River and Kanawha River in West Virginia, and flowed for a short distance with the Ohio River before turning north and west in Ohio, and included part of the course of the Scioto River as well.
Thus, the sheer, deep gorges of the New River and Kanawha River were formed over a relatively long period of geologic time, by a larger river than flows through them today.
A look at topographic maps, vegetational maps, or shaded relief maps of Ohio clearly show the old course of the river, before it was captured, as it turned north from the present course of the Ohio River, thence west to join with the current Scioto River valley. A visitor to the part of the Scioto River that flows in the Old Teays valley may notice that the valley does, indeed, seem inappropriately large for the size of the present-day Scioto.
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