NORTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

THE COASTS.

1. General View of the Continent.

NORTH AMERICA has, in common with very many of the land features of the earth, a roughly triangular shape, with the base near its northern line, and its acutest angle stretching towards the south. Its northern shores are covered by the perpetual ice and snow of the polar regions, while its southern extremity is dressed in the rich profusion of the tropics.

Politically, it contains several divisions, the central and most populous of which is the United States. North of this, and occupying very nearly the same area, are the British Possessions; while north-west of the latter is Alaska, recently sold by the Russians to the United States.

South of the United States is the uneasy republic of Mexico, occupying the greatly diminished breadth of the continent; Yucatan, occupying the peninsula of the same name; Guatemala, Honduras, and other small principalities.

In this work we shall confine ourselves to a description of the two first-mentioned countries, Mexico and the smaller states south of it having been already described in the work on Central and South America.

B

The United States, then, while bounded on the west and east by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans respectively, is limited on the north by the British Possessions, and on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, and by the north boundary of Mexico. This line follows up the Rio Grande del Norte to El Paso, whence it takes a general westward course to the Pacific, following certain parallels of latitude or certain arbitrary directions without regard to the natural features of the country.

The main physical features of this part of North America are very simple. There are two great meridional systems of uplift; that of the Appalachians, near the Atlantic coast, and the vastly greater one of the Cordilleras, which occupies an enormous breadth, in the western part of the country. Between the two is a broad basin, that of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes. The area of the United States, including Alaska, is 3,580,242 square miles.1

2. The Gulf Coast.

The Gulf of Mexico washes the southern shores of the United States, from longitude 81° to 97° west of Greenwich. The general trend of the coast-line is east and west, turning sharply to the south at the east and west sides of the Gulf. It is comparatively simple, being but slightly cut by bays and other indentations. It is a tropic coast throughout. It is low, and in very many places marshy. It has many long, narrow islands, lying parallel with the general coast-line, behind which are lagoons-narrow bays parallel to the coast-opening, in some cases, into other bays, which extend some distance inland, making fine and well-protected, but shallow harbours. Most of the rivers discharging into the Gulf have formed sand-bars across their mouths; and several of

1 The area of the great lakes is not included in this statement.

the streams, notably the Mississippi, have built up deltas about their points of discharge.

3. The Eastern Coast.

The eastern seaboard has, on the whole, a straight course, inclining a little to the north-east.

Within the

United States its general course is but slightly broken by projections and indentations. The great peninsula of

Florida, mainly the work of the coral polypes, projects southward, partially separating the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. Thence north to the southern limit of Virginia the coast greatly resembles that of the Gulf in its low-lying shores, its lagoons, and lagoon-islands. In this section Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds are the principal inlets, and Capes Fear and Hatteras, the "stormy cape," almost the only projections.

As we proceed northward the coast becomes bolder and more broken. The harbours are deeper, and the bars at their entrances diminish and then disappear. Here are the great bays of Delaware and Chesapeake, and, farther north, Long Island Sound, separating Long Island from the State of Connecticut, the beautiful Narraganset Bay, and Massachusetts Bay, on whose shores the Puritan pilgrims found a resting-place.

4. The Pacific Coast.

The west coast of North America is much less varied than the eastern coast. The whole western seaboard of the United States, from the insignificant little bay of San Diego on the south, northwards to Washington Territory, presents nothing save a few small inlets and islands to vary its uniformity. The Bay of San Francisco only, under the 38th parallel, penetrates to any extent inland, and forms one of the finest harbours on the continent.

But north of the boundary line between the States and the British Possessions the features of the coast-line become more interesting. At the boundary itself lies the island of Vancouver, separated from the mainland by the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Georgia and Queen Charlotte's Sound.

Thence northward there is a line of islands along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska, and, from the extremity of the peninsula of the latter, an almost continuous line stretches across to the coast of Kamtchatka. At the southern boundary of British Columbia there begins a peculiar fiord-like formation, strikingly recalling the features of the Norwegian coast. Nor is it the coast of the mainland alone that is so indented; also, though to a less extent, are the numerous islands lying off the coast, including Vancouver, Queen Charlotte, Prince of Wales, Sitka or New Archangel, and Kodiak, off the Alaskan Peninsula.

In latitude 67° the American coast approaches very close to that of Asia, a space of only 32 miles separating them. This strait, first discovered in 1728 by a Cossack voyager, was, in 1808, carefully explored by Bering, after whom it has been named. It connects the Pacific Ocean with the Arctic, to whose coasts we next turn.

5. The Shores of the Arctic Ocean.

These inhospitable regions are little known, as this frozen land is seldom visited by white men.

This shore trends very nearly east and west, and lies approximately on the 70th parallel of north latitude. In its western part it is simple, but farther east it becomes cut deeply by bays, and off the shore are many and very large islands. Hudson's Bay, the great inland sea already mentioned, connects, through Fox's Channel, Hecla and Fury Strait and the Gulf of Boothia with the Arctic Ocean.

CHAPTER II.

THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN SYSTEM.

1. General Features.

THIS is the easternmost of the two great systems of uplift of the continent. In magnitude and in height it is far inferior to the Western or Cordillera system.

Its general trend is parallel to the coast-that is, a few degrees east of north, and the numerous parallel ranges and ridges which are its component parts conform to the general trend of the system.

Subordinate to the ranges is a general rise of the surface, which at the north is noticeable quite near the coast, but which retreats from it as we trace it southward. This plateau extends some distance west of the range, forming the highlands of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, where it has an elevation of nearly 2000 feet above the sea.

2. General Geographical Structure.

The structure of the ranges which make up this system is as varied as are the formations composing them, which range from the Archæan to the Carboniferous. They have been subjected to repeated subsidences and uplifts, resulting in a complicated system of flexures, foldings, and fractures, causing vertical displacements of strata of more than 10,000 feet. And they have subse