GKOLOGT. 277 







isolated on one f-ide in the interval between the two chains, touching by a 

 corner the high Pinnacle of the Blue Ridge, and overtowering all the neigh- 

 boring chains by a thousand feet. In the large and comparatively deep 

 basin of the French Broad Valley, the Blue Ridge is considerably depressed, 

 while the western chain preserves its increasing height. Beyond the French 

 Broad rises the most massive cluster of highlands and of mountain chains. 

 Here the chain of the Great Smoky mountains, which extends from the 

 deep cut of the French Broad at Paint Rock, to that, not less remarkable, of 

 the Little Tennessee, is the master chain of that region, and of the whole 

 Alleghany system. Though its highest summits are a few feet below the 

 highest peaks of the Black Mountain, it presents on that extent of sixty-five 

 miles a continuous series of high peaks, and an average elevation not to be 

 found in any other district, and which give to it a greater importance in the 

 geographical structure of that vast system of mountains. The gaps or 

 depressions never fail below five thousand feet, except towards the south- 

 west and beyond Forney Ridge, and the number of peaks, the altitude of 

 which exceeds six thousand feet, is indeed very large. On the opposite side, 

 to the southeast, the Bhie Ridge also rises again to a considerable height, in 

 the stately mountains of the Great Hogback and Whiteside, which nearly 

 reach five thousand feet, and keeps on in a series of peaks scarcely less 

 elevated far beyond the boundary of Georgia. 



Moreover, the interior, between the Smoky mountains and the Blue Ridge, 

 is filled with chains which offer peaks higher still than the latter. The 

 compact and intricated cluster of high mountains, which form the almost 

 unknown wilderness covering the southern portion of Haywood and Jack- 

 son Counties, is remarkable by its massiveness and the number of lofty 

 peaks which are crowded within a comparatively narrow space. The Cold 

 Mountain chain, which constitutes one of its main axes, shows a long series 

 of broad tops, nearly all of which exceed six thousand feet. Near the south 

 end, but west of it, not far from the head-waters of the French Broad, the 

 Pigeon, and the Tuckaseegee waters, Mount Hardy raises its dark and broad 

 head to the height of 6133 feet. Still further northwest, the group culmi- 

 nates in the Richland Balsam, 64-25 feet, which divides the waters of the two 

 main branches of Pigeon River and of the Caney fork of the Tuckaseegee. 

 Amos Piott's Balsam, in the midst of the great Balsam chain, which runs in 

 a parallel direction between the two main chains, measures 6278 feet. Con- 

 sidering, therefore, these great features of physical structure, and the consid- 

 erable elevation of the valleys which form the base of these high chains, we 

 may say that this vast cluster of highlands between the French Broad and 

 the Tuckaseegee rivers is the culminating region of the great Appalachian 

 system. 



New Map of the Allegliany System. The measurements of Professor Guyot, 

 just referred to, furnish important data for the correction as well as the 

 completion of all existing maps of the regions which he has examined. 

 These data, with the exception of those collected in the past summer, have 

 been employed by Mr. Sandoz, a nephew of Professor Guyot, and an accom- 

 plished draftsman, in the construction of a new map of the entire Allegliany 

 chain, which has been published in the July number of Petermann's Mit- 

 iheilungen. Mr. Sandoz has accompanied Mr. Guyot on many of his moun- 

 tain expeditions, and took the results with him to Gotha, where the chart 

 was drawn and engraved under the direction of Dr. Peterrnann. 



The scale of the map is 1 : 6,000,000. Two detailed subordinate maps arc 



24 



