2 rOLRTH REPORT — 1834. 



bounded by two broad ranges, or rather belts, of mountains. 

 One plain, the least considerable by far, occupies the space 

 between the Atlantic and the Appalachian or Alleghany Moun- 

 tains, and extends from Long Island, or more properly from the 

 eastern coast of Massachusetts, to the Gulf of Mexico, losing 

 itself at its south-western termination in the plain of the Mis- 

 sissippi : this last is a portion of the second great plain, which 

 we may style the central basin of the continent, and occupies 

 much the largest portion of the whole surface of North America. 

 In breadth it spreads from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and expands from the Gulf of Mexico, widening as it 

 extends northward, until it reaches the Arctic Sea and Hudson's 

 Bay. Over the whole of this great area occur no mountain 

 chains, nor any elevations beyond a few long ranges of hills. It 

 is made up of a few very wide and regular slopes, one from the 

 Appalachians, westward to the Mississippi ; another, more ex- 

 tensive and very uniform, from the Rocky Mountains eastward 

 to the same ; and a third from the sources of the Mississippi and 

 the great lakes northward to the Arctic Sea. The most striking 

 feature of this region is the amazing imiformity of the whole 

 surface, rising by a perfectly regular and very gentle ascent from 

 the Gulf of Mexico to the head waters of the Mississippi, and 

 the lakes reaching in that space an elevation of not more than 

 700 or 800 feet, and rising again in a similar manner from the 

 banks of the Mississippi westward to the very foot of the Rocky 

 Mountains. From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi the sur- 

 face is more broken into hills, and embraces the most fertile 

 territory of the United States. Three or four hundred miles 

 west of the Mississippi a barren desert commences, extending 

 to the Rocky Mountains, covering a breadth of between four 

 and five hundred miles, from the Missouri in lat. 46°, the whole 

 way into Mexico. The territory from the sources of the Missis- 

 sippi, north, is little known except to fur traders and the Indians, 

 but is always described as low, level, and abounding in lakes. 



Of the two chief mountain belts which range through the con- 

 tinent, both nearly parallel to the adjacent coasts, the Alleghany, 

 or Appalachian, is by far the least considerable. This system of 

 mountains separates the central plain or basin of the Mississippi 

 from the plain next the Atlantic, though its ridges do not in 

 strictness divide the rivers which severally water the two slopes. 

 The northern and southern terminations of these mountains are 

 n.)t well defined; they commence, however, in Maine, traverse 

 New Ei^gland nearly from north to south, deviate from the sea 

 and enter New York, cross Pennsylvania in a broad belt, in- 

 flecting first to the west and then again to the south, and from 



