chains of the United States are the Rocky mountains in the west and the Alleghanies in the east, the former being much the loftier and more extensive. These two chains divide the country into three great geographical regions: the Atlantic slope, between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic ocean; the Pacific slope, from the Rocky mountains to the Pacific; and the Mississippi valley, which lies between the two ranges. The Rocky mountains are a continuation northward of the Cordilleras of Central America and Mexico, and traverse in several ranges an area 1,000 m. broad from E. to W., embracing in all its parts nearly 1,000,000 sq. m. The most easterly of these ranges runs through the territories of New Mexico, Colorado, and Nebraska, and forms the dividing line between Dacotah and Washington; it includes in its ramifications the Spanish peaks, Pike's peak, and the Wind River mountains, in which is Fremont's peak, 13,570 feet high. The next great range of the Rocky mountains toward the west is called the Wahsatch mountains, lying S. of Great Salt lake, and under this and other names passing N. to the E. of that lake. In Utah these mountains spread over a wide district, and the ridges of the several peaks lie in various directions, the course of those known as the Uintah mountains being E. and W. The western portion of the Rocky mountain chain enters the United States on the S. from Lower California, and soon branches into two ranges, the highest of which, the Sierra Nevada, runs at the distance of about 160 m. from the Pacific, while the inferior parallel ridges, known as the Coast range, keep within 10 to 50 m. of the ocean, till in the N. part of California they mingle in confused groups again with the Sierra Nevada, where Mt. Shasta reaches an elevation of 14,000 feet. Through Oregon and Washington territory the distinction is still continued between the Coast range and the main range, which here drops the name of Sierra Nevada and takes that of Cascade mountains. The summits of the Sierra Nevada are generally above the limit of perpetual snow. The Coast range averages from 2,000 to 8,000 feet in height; but a few peaks rise to double that altitude, among them Mt. Ripley, 7,500 feet; St. John, 8,000; and Mt. Linn, the highest of the range, whose altitude however is not yet precisely ascertained. The Alleghanies, called also the Appalachian mountains, extend from Canada through western New England, the middle states, and the southern states, to Alabama. The White mountains of New Hampshire and the Adirondac mountains of New York are considered outliers of this great chain, though separated from the main stem by wide tracts of low elevation. The Catskills of New York also are outliers less distantly removed. All these groups are described in this cylopædia under their own titles. The Alleghanies proper, not including these lateral groups, are about 1,300 m. in length, with an extreme width of 100 m., in Pennsylvania and Maryland, midway of their course.-The geological features of the states being described in the account of each one under its own name, it only remains to present a general outline of the formations in their range through the country. The most ancient rocks, and no doubt the oldest known strata in the crust of the earth, are those designated by the Canadian geologists the laurentian series. They consist of gneiss more or less granitic, quartz rock, limestones, dolomites, conglomer ates, and, in the upper portion, of feldspathic rocks and great bodies of iron ore. They are largely developed over a great portion of Canada, where they attain a thickness of 40,000 feet, and also occur in the United States in the Adirondac region of northern New York. These crystalline formations differ from those regard. ed as of more recent date, which constitute the Green mountains and the White mountains and the greater portion of the New England states, in the absence of argillaceous, talcose, and chlo ritic schists, and are also marked by various other mineralogical characteristics. The next overlying series of rocks, known as the huronian, is found in Canada, to the north of Lakes Huron and Superior, in great beds of quartz rock, conglomerates, limestones, slaty rocks of peculiar character, and diorites, which altoge ther attain a thickness of about 10,000 feet, and overspread extensive districts. On the S. shore of Lake Superior, this formation contains enor mous beds of iron ore at Marquette and other neighboring localities. This series is regarded as the equivalent of the cambrian sandstones and conglomerates described by Murchison. Though classed with the laurentian as azoie rocks, numerous indications are observed of both these formations having originally been sedimentary deposits, and like those of more recent date abounding in organic bodies of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, the forms of which have been destroyed by the metamorphie action to which the rocks have been subjected. The most ancient fossiliferous rocks (belonging to the primordial zone of Barrande, and recog‐ nized by some geologists as establishing a group below the lower silurian, named by Dr. E. Em mons as far back as 1844 the "Taconic system"), characterized by the paradoxides Harlani and other ancient genera of trilobites, are found in the argillaceous schists at Braintree, Mass., in the central portion of North Carolina, and pos sibly in some slates at Georgia, Vt., which how ever the Canadian geologists regard as equiva lent to the "Quebec group," and this as contemporaneous with the calciferous and Chazy formations of the lower silurian of New York. It is also maintained that some sandstones in Iowa and Minnesota referred to the lower silu rian should by reason of their fossils be placed in this lower system. The crystalline and schistose strata of New England, extending S. W. through the highlands of New York and New Jersey, and thence through the Appalachian chain to Alabama, have been variously classed by different geologists. They consist of feldspathic ticut, continued through New Jersey and across Pennsylvania into Virginia. The coal fields of S. E. Virginia and of North Carolina are referred to this group. Beside the great coast range of the tertiary formations already named, the newer pliocene is met with in scattered localities in the S. part of Maine and on the borders of Lake Champlain. The drift formation covers all the northern portion of the United States, the southern limit of the bowlders sometimes reaching lat. 40° N. The most through the gap of Peter's mount above Harrisburg near the Susquehanna, in lat. 40° 30'. The deposits of alluvium are of comparatively little extent, being mostly limited to the borders of the rivers and lakes. At the mouth of the Mississippi river only they spread out into a delta of broad area. Beyond the Mississippi valley the metamorphic groups of the Appalachians are repeated upon a grander scale in the Rocky mountains; but between the numerous ridges appear wide belts of the cretaceous strata and of modern tertiary deposits. Of such formations consist the vast arid plains and slopes stretching out toward the Pacific. In the mountainous districts are found all the formations from the lower crystalline groups to the coal, often traversed by great dikes of trappean and other eruptive rocks, some of which are traced to volcanoes but recently extinct or still active. An interesting volcanic district on the Colorado river of the West is described by Lieut. Joseph C. Ives in his report of explorations made for the U. S. government in 1857 and 1858. Beyond the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains the country extending to the Pacific is chiefly occupied by tertiary strata, which have been so broken up by movements of the crust and volcanic eruptions, as to present an excessively rugged surface and diversified structure. The metals in the Atlantic division generally follow the range of the Appalachians, and, excepting the copper region of Lake Superior, the lead mines of the West, and some iron mines in the same region, few metallic districts of importance are met with except in the crystalline rocks connected with this range of mountains. The metalliferous belts of New Mexico in like manner accompany the range of the same rocks in the Rocky mountains, and of California those of the Sierra Nevada, the debris from which, swept down into the tertiary strata, have furnished these with the precious metals for which they are extensively worked.-The soil presents almost every variety, from the dry sterile plains in the region of the Great Salt lake to the rich alluviums of the Mississippi valley. It can most conveniently be described by following the 7 great divisions indicated by the river systems of the country, viz.: the St. Lawrence basin, the Atlantic slope, the Mississippi valley, the Texas slope, the Pacific slope, the inland basin of Utah, sometimes called the Great or Fremont basin, and the basin of the Red river of the North. 1. The St. Lawrence basin embraces gneiss, quartz rocks, argillaceous, micaceous, talcose, and chloritic slates, &c.; and while regarded by some as forming the base of the Appalachian system, other geologists consider them as metamorphosed sandstones, shales, limestones, &c., of the lower silurian series. These, together with the unaltered rocks of this group, and those which succeed it, including the devonian and carboniferous, constitute the whole of this chain. From its range westward the whole country to the Rocky mountains, with the exception of the Ozark mountain region in south-southern diluvial scratches are found on the road ern Missouri and a few localities in Wisconsin and the northern peninsula of Michigan, contains no crystalline rocks. The lower silurian limestones come up to the surface at Cincinnati, O., Frankfort, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn., separating with the accompanying upper silurian members the great coal field of W. Pennsylvania, E. Ohio, Virginia, E. Kentucky, and Tennessee from the western coal fields of Illinois, Indiana, and W. Kentucky. On the north, a third coal field occupies the central portion of the lower peninsula of Michigan; and to the north-west a fourth coal field of great extent spreads over nearly the whole of Iowa, N. Missouri, and a large part of Kansas. The carboniferous series, wherever met with, is the uppermost formation, excepting in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, where the permian strata have been recognized. The great plains that extend from the Missouri and up the valleys of the Arkansas, Red river, &c., to the Rocky mountains, are almost exclusively occupied by cretaceous rocks, sometimes overlaid by those of tertiary age. These groups are an extension of those which form the whole country bordering the gulf of Mexico, and extending inland toward the southern extremity of the Appalachian mountains. Florida, Louisiana, and the coasts from Texas to Martha's Vineyard are composed of the tertiary, the belt gradually diminishing in width toward the north-east. The most recent members of this class are found in general near the coast, the older strata cropping out inland. Nowhere are they broken in upon or the strata disturbed by the intrusion of eruptive rocks of more recent date. Their elevation is evidently due to a continental and slow movement. The cretaceous formation passes across New Jersey and N. Delaware from New York bay to the head of Chesapeake bay, occurs at a few points in S. E. Virginia, near Wilmington, N. C., and through central South Carolina and Georgia, and thence stretches continuously in a broad belt through central Alabama, curving N. through N. Mississippi and W. Tennessee. It rests in general upon the metamorphic belt of the Appalachians, and the ascent to the higher platform of these rocks S. of New York is commonly marked by the first or lowest falls of the rivers, determining the head of navigation. (See APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS.) The lower jurassic formation is represented in the narrow belt of red sandstones along the lower valley of the Connec parts of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and all of Michigan; it is an elevated and fertile plain, generally well wooded. 2. The Atlantic slope includes all New England except a part of Vermont; all of New Jersey, Delaware, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Florida; and portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It may be subdivided into two regions, a N. E. section and a S. W. section, separated by the Hudson river. The former is hilly, and generally better adapted to grazing than tillage, though some parts of it are naturally fertile, and a large proportion is carefully cultivated. The S. W. section may be again divided into a coast belt from 30 to 150 m. in width, running from Long Island sound to the mouth of the Mississippi, and including the whole peninsula of Florida; and an inland slope from the mountains toward this coast belt. The former as far S. as the Roanoke river is sandy and not naturally fertile, though capable of being made highly productive; from the Roanoke to the Mississippi it is generally swampy, with sandy tracts here and there, and a considerable proportion of rich alluvial soil. The inland slope is one of the finest districts in the United States, the soil consisting for the most part of alluvium from the mountains and the decomposed primitive rocks which underlie the surface. 3. The Mississippi valley occupies more than two fifths of the area of the republic, and extends from the Alleghany to the Rocky mountains, and from the gulf of Mexico to British North America, thus including parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and all of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. It is for the most part a prairie country, of fertility unsurpassed by any region on the globe, except perhaps the valley of the Amazon. The ground in many places is covered with mould to the depth of several feet, in some instances to the depth of 25 feet. The N. W. part of the valley, however, offers a strong contrast to the remainder. There is a desert plateau from 200 to 400 m. wide lying at the base of the Rocky mountains, at an elevation of 2,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, part of it incapable of cultivation on account of the deficiency of rain and lack of means of irrigation, and part naturally sterile. 4. The Texas slope includes the country S. W. of the Mississippi valley, drained by rivers which flow into the gulf of Mexico, and embracing nearly all of Texas and portions of Louisiana and New Mexico. It may be divided into 3 regions: a coast belt from 30 to 60 m. wide, low, level, and very fertile, especially in the river bottoms; a rich rolling prairie, extending from the coast belt about 150 or 200 m. inland, and admirably suited for grazing; and a lofty table land in the N. W., utterly destitute of trees, scantily supplied with grass, and during a part of the year parched with complete drought. Almost the only arable land in this last section is found in the valleys of the Rio Grande and a few other streams. 5. The Pacific slope, embracing the greater part of California, Oregon, and Washington territory, and parts of New Mexico and Utah, is generally sterile. That part however between the Coast range and the ocean, and the valleys between the Coast range and the Cascade range and Sierra Nevada are very fertile, and the same may be said of a few valleys and slopes among the Wahsatch and Rocky mountains, though these are better adapted to pasturage than to any thing else. 6. The great inland basin of Utah, which includes beside Utah parts of New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Washington, is probably the most desolate por tion of the United States. It abounds in salt lakes, and there are only a few valleys where the soil acquires by irrigation enough fertility to afford a support for man. 7. That portion of the basin of the Red river of the North which belongs to the United States is confined to the small tract in the N. part of Dacotah and Minnesota; it contains some very produc tive lands, especially in the river bottoms.The climate of the United States is as varied as might be expected in a country stretching through 25 degrees of latitude, and rising from low swampy shores to vast elevated and arid table lands and prodigious mountain ranges. With the exception of the peninsula of Florida, where the range of the thermome ter during the year does not exceed 12°, its most prominent feature is fickleness. Transi tions from heat to cold and from cold to heat, to the extent of 30° in a few hours, are com mon at all seasons in almost all parts of the country, and the alternations from rain to drought are nearly as remarkable. The summer is everywhere marked by intense heat, the thermometer rising sometimes as high as 110° F. In the north, however, this intense heat is seldom continued for more than a few days at a time, and in the southern states the heat, though long continued, is seldom so extreme. The Atlantic states have in general a temperature about 10° more severe than countries of the same latitude in western Europe, while California on the other hand has a climate as mild as that of Italy. The north-eastern states are subject to chill winds from the Atlantic, especially in the spring months, and the ice fields of British North America are the cradle of cold blasts which, having no mountain barrier to overcome, sweep over the northern states upon every considerable rise in the temperature further south. The great lakes mitigate to some extent the temperature of the country surrounding them, and other local features, such as the elevated plains of New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah, affect the climate of par ticular parts of the country. The isothermal line which passes through New Haven (aver Fortress Monroe, near Norfolk, Va. 87° Fort Columbus, N. Y. harbor... Fort Sullivan, East port, Me.. .... Spring. 56.87 Sum. Au. Winmer. tumn. ter. Year. 76.57 61.68 40.45 55.89 40° 42 48.74 72.10° 54.55 31.38 51.69 44 15 40.15 60.50 47.52 23.90 43.02 St. Louis, Mo. 38 40 54.15 76.19 55.44 82.27 54.51 Chicago, Ill... 41° 52 44.90° 67.33° 48.85° 25.90 46.75° Fort Ripley, Minn. 46 19 39.33 64.94 42.91 10.01 39.30° Monterey, Cal... 36 36 53.99° | 58.64° 57.29° 51.22° 55.29° San Francisco, Cal. 37° 48' 54.41° 57.33° 56.83 50.86 54.88" Astoria, Oregon... 46' 11 51.16 61.58 53.76° | 42.43 52.23° Rain is abundant over the greater part of the republic, and pretty equally distributed throughout the year, as is shown by the following table of the fall in inches at various points: fall in the desert region through which the Colorado flows, is estimated at 3 inches; in the inland basin of Utah, 5 inches; in the great plain S. of the Columbia river, 10 inches; in the desert E. of the Rocky mountains, from 15 to 20 inches. Scarcely any of this fall occurs in summer. In the northern states snow frequently falls to a considerable depth, and in the region about Lake Superior more or less falls every day in winter, and does not melt until the spring. It is a comparative rarity S. of the Potomac, and when it does occur in the southern states it lasts but a very short time.-The most fatal diseases of the northern and middle states are affections of the lungs; of the southern states, bilious fevers, with occasional severe visitations of yellow fever along the gulf; and of the western states, intermittent and bilious fevers and dysentery. The fever and ague so prevalent in the west is attributed to the miasmatic exhalations incident to the breaking up of new lands, and rapidly disappears as the country becomes settled. The cholera has generally been more fatal in the valley of the Mississippi than in any other part of the country. According to the census of 1850, the number of deaths in the Union was 1 in every 72 inhabitants (1.39 per cent.), the greatest mortality being in Louisiana (1 in every 44), and the least in Oregon (1 in every 283). The following table shows the ratio of deaths to every 100 of the population in each of the states and territories for the year ending June 30, 1850: 83.90 8.50 9.23 13.54 7.53 89.80 9.38 9.87 8.23 7.48 34.96 8.51 9.29 7.41 4.86 30.07 12.86 14.09 8.71 6.29 41.95 6.61 10.92 5.98 1.92 25.43 6.81 12.62 8.42 2.13 29.48 7.97 12.24 7.83 2.75 30.29 12.48 18.03 9.93 6.66 42.10 19.12 3.00 19.60 26.80 68.52 Fort Smith, Ark.. Fort Orford, Oregon. Fort Vancouver, Wash ington territory... Ban Diego, Cal. 11.19 3.85 15.20 21.51 51.75 San Francisco, Cal. Indiana.. Maine Delaware. New Jersey. Florida, which figures 6th in the above table, is considered as healthy as any other part of the country, a large proportion of the deaths in that state being of consumptive and other invalids from the north, who resort there in winter. In judging of the climate of some of the other states from the mortality tables, an allowance should be made for the large cities, in which the ratio of deaths is always much higher than it is in the rural districts.-The variety of geological formations occurring over the extensive territory of the United States insures the existence and economical production at one point or another of most of the minerals useful to man. Coal, which is every year becoming more valuable for fuel, and for the production of gas and other processes of the arts, exists in all the states except Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, and is of 3 distinct qualities, an Total........ 144,376,927* $7,491,191 | 9,398,332 $11,874,574 Marl is found in extensive and valuable beds in Maine, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and some of the other states. Salt springs, some of them producing brine of extraordinary strength, occur in New York, Michigan, Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas. Nitrates of soda and potassa are found in the caves of Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama, and nitrate and carbonate of soda on the plains of the great American desert and the eastern slope of the Rocky mountain range. Sulphate of lime (gypsum) occurs in Maine, Maryland, Texas, and some portions of New Mexico and Arizona. Marble of every variety for building, ornamental, and statuary purposes, is found in most of the states; and a carbonate of lime, compact and suitable for building purposes, supplies its place in the states bordering on the Mississippi. Of the metals, iron is found in every state and territory, and in every form known, from the pure metal to the bog ore containing not more than 20 per cent. of iron. Lead exists in small quantities in many of the states, but the great deposits of galena or lead ore are in Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, and Illinois. Copper has been mined in considerable quantities in Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee; but the great copper region is that near Lake Superior, where ore is produced which yields from 71 to 90 per cent. of pure metal. Zinc is found in great abundance in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and to some extent in other states. Tin has recently been discovered in Maine under circumstances which indicate the probability of its becoming an important product of that state; and it has also been discovered in California in considerable quantities. Silver, which exists in combination with lead in all the deposits of lead ore, and is also found in connection with copper in some of the mines, exists in large quantities and is profitably worked in the territories of Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. It is also found in California, in the territory of Colorado, and in North Carolina. Gold is found in small quan*Equal to 5,775,077 tone. tities in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Alabama, and Tennessee; Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia formerly furnished the largest supplies of the country; while California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Dacotah, with the colony of British Columbia, constitute probably the most extensive and productive. gold region in the world. Platinum is found in California, though not in large quantity. Mercury is also found in California in such amount as to have supplied a considerable part of the large demand for it for mining purposes. Osmium and iridium have been discovered in Oregon, and are in demand by the manufac turers of gold pens. Cobalt occurs in North Carolina and Missouri; nickel in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Missouri; chromium in Verand Maryland; and manganese in Vermont, mont, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. From the impossibility of obtaining correct returns of mineral productions, no tabular statement can be given; for fuller accounts and approximate estimates, the reader is referred to the separate articles upon them.Botanists arrange the trees and shrubs of the United States in several provinces, each marked by a distinctive character and fixed limits. Two of these provinces extend northward into Canada, and two others pass over the boundaries in the south-west into Mexico; but the greater part are confined within the limits of the United States. 1. The lacustrian province extends along the basin of the great lakes and the St. Lawrence, and has for its boundaries the limit of forests on the north, the coasts of Labrador on the east, the line of N. lat. 43° on the coast, curving gradually southward to the Alleghanies, where it ascends again to the parallel of 60° at the Rocky mountains. Among the characteristic trees of this province are the betula or birch, of which 5 species are found, viz.: B. papyracea or paper birch, B. excelsa, nigra, lenta, and populifolia, known by the common names of yellow, black, sweet, and white old field birch; 2 species of alnus or alder, A. incana and viridis, or speckled and green alder; a single species of willow, salix lucida; 4 species of populus or poplar, P. tremuloides (aspen poplar), balsamifera (balsam poplar or tacamahac), candicans (balm of Gilead poplar), and grandidentata (soft aspen poplar); and 4 species of abies or spruce, viz.: A. alba, nigra, balsamea, and Canadensis, or white, black, balsam, and hemlock spruce or fir. Allied to the last named are the pines, of which only 3 are found in this province, pinus Banksiana (gray scrub pine), resinosa (red or Norway pine), and strobus (white pine). There are 2 junipers, juniperus communis and Virginiana, known as northern juniper and red cedar. The thuja occidentalis or Canadian arbor vitæ, the tarus Canadensis or Canadian yew, and the larix Americana or larch tamarack, are the only other evergreens. |