THE CENTRAL BASIN OF TENNESSEE. 85 



been placed among the subcarboniferous formations, and would, there- 

 fore, belong to a much older formation to any of the Pennsylvania or 

 Ohia coals of which eastern Kentucky held is but an extension. The 

 western Kentucky area unites with the coal-bearing strata of south 

 eastern Indiana. 



The geography of this part of America duiing the age in which the 

 coal beds were being deposited appears to have been a long narrow 

 neck of dry land from the region of Cincinnati southward across 

 Kentucky and Tennessee owing to an elevation of the subcarboniferous 

 limestones and shales leaving a depression filled with shallow water 

 and marshes eastward as far as Western New York, and covering the 

 territory now occupied by the Appalachian chain of mountains. To 

 the west the great inland sea flowed along the old coast close to the 

 present Tennessee River Valley. 



The carboniforous period having closed and the Permian age begun, 

 a series of distui-bances took place which changed the appearance of 

 things over the eastern portion of the North American continent, and 

 resulted in the upheaval of the Appalachian Mountains. 



The term Appalachian is the general one applied to the great 

 mountain system which stretches from Maine to the borders of Ala- 

 bama, its distance from the sea generally ranging from 100 miles in 

 the north, and about 300 in the south. The chain consi-ts of several 

 ranges generally parallel to each other which along with the interme- 

 diate valleys form a belt 100 miles wide, of which the valleys occupy 

 about two-thirds. The chief ridges forming the chain are, beginning 

 from the north, in New Hampshire the White Mountains with 

 Moosehillock and Washington respectively, 4,636 and 6,634 feet. In 

 Vermont the Green Mountains attain in Killington Peak, a height of 

 3,924 feet, and immediately beyond the Hudson come the Catskill 

 Mountains with Round Top and High Peak, attaining elevations of 

 3,800 and 3,718 feet. From the north of New Jersey as far as 

 Virginia, the Kittatinnies and in the same pai-allels, but nearer the sea, 

 the Blue Ridge run down to North Carolina. In Virginia there are 

 the peaks of Otter, 4,000 feet, and in North Carolina the highest sum- 

 mit of the system Black Dome, 6,750 feet is found. Lastly, there lie 

 more to the westward the Alleghanies proper in Pennsylvania and 

 Virginia, and the Cumberland Mountains on the eastern border of 

 Kentucky and Tennessee. 



