280 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Taconic " and the latter as the " Lower Taconic." (See Marcou, 

 Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1861, pp. 246, 247.) 



THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN SYSTEM. 



Professor Guyot, whose researches in respect to the great Appa- 

 lachian or Alleghany Mountain System of North America have 

 been before noticed in previous volumes of the Annual of Scientific 

 Discovery, communicates to Silliman's Journal for March, 1861, a 

 very elaborate paper on the above subject, accompanied by a map 

 and a table of the heights of nearly all the principal peaks of this 

 range of mountains. From this paper we derive the following mem- 

 oranda : 



The remark has been made with justice that the Appalachian or 

 Alleghany system of mountains, although situated in the midst of a 

 civilized nation, is still one of the chains concerning which we have 

 the least amount of positive knowledge. This is due in a considera- 

 ble degree to the obstacles, often very great, which the explorer 

 meets in these wild regions. A chain of thirteen hundred miles in 

 length is a vast field, especially when it includes mountains covered 

 with interminable forests, where a footpath rarely guides the trav- 

 eller's step, and which it is impossible to cross except with a hatchet 

 in the hand, and with a loss of time and strength often quite dispro- 

 portionate to the results which arc obtained. Add to this, that in 

 many parts of the system the journey is to be made in an unknown 

 region, without a reliable map, far from a human dwelling, rarely 

 penetrated by the most hardy hunters. The explorer must I;- ready 

 to march without any trusty guide, and to .sleep in the open aJ.-, ex- 

 posed to the inclement temperature of the elevated regions, and 

 obliged to depend for nourishment on the food which he can carry 

 with him. In these circumstances the danger of perishing from ex- 

 haustion is by no means imaginary. 



In a great portion of the Appalachian chain, especially towards 

 the south, the lofty forests, which crown nearly all the summits, and 

 the thick underbrush, literally impenetrable, of rhododendrons and 

 other evergreens, in which the faint track of the bear is often the 

 only assistance of the traveller, are not less serious obstacles. The 

 difficulty of obtaining general views, enabling one to take his bear- 

 ings in the labyrinth of mountains which cover the country, is thus 

 considerably increased ; and the favorable points of observation which 

 are necessary to determine the position of the peaks which are mea- 

 sured or to be measured, and for identifying them in every case, are 

 by no means numerous. 



The upheavals of ancient rocks which constitute the general struc- 

 ture of the Appalachian system extend in an undulating line thirteen 

 hundred miles in a mean direction of north-east to south-west, from 

 the promontory of Gaspc upon the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Alabama, 

 where the terminal chains sink down, and are lost in the recent and 

 almost horizontal strata of the cretaceous and tertiary formations 

 which cover the greater portion of the surface of that State. This 

 long range of elevations is composed of a considerable number of 

 chains, sensibly parallel to each other, occupying more particularly 



