840 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



ginning in Oneida county, there runs westward through it a broad 

 belt of wheat growing soil, which extends to its western limits. 



The commerce of the Canadian portion is already with us $50,- 

 000,000, and our internal trade is three times this amount. 200,- 

 000 of its population live by its mines, and the number will be 

 much increased in the future. The capacity of the Canadian por- 

 tion to hold a large population is much restricted by the close 

 proximity of the barren and desolate Laurentian mountains of 

 Labrador. 



The Canadian portion doubles its population in seventeen years. 

 When the Atlantic and Mississippi basins shall hold their 260,- 

 000,000 of people, this basin may have its 20,000,000. 



The natural tendency of all its commerce west of the St. John's 

 river, which seeks a facile and certain transit to the sea-board, is 

 by the Valley of the Mohawk, or Lake Champlain. All the arti- 

 ficial communications of its internal traffic equally tend thither- 

 wards. So long as winter frosts shall close the mouth of the St. 

 Lawrence five mouths of the year, its main outlet to the sea will 

 be by the Valley of the Hudson. 



Atlantic Basin. 



This basin reaches through 28^ of longitude, and 20° of lati- 

 tude. Its contour is that of a long narrow slope, extending in a 

 northeast direction about 2,700 miles, and from 200 to 500 miles 

 broad. Its northwest rim is the Appalachian mountains. From 

 this crest its streams descend rapidly to the sea shore, giving more 

 than forty sub-basins of the most delightful scenery, highly im- 

 proved by taste and art, and fertile valleys teeming with com- 

 merce and manufactures. In them are the great commercial and 

 manufacturing centres, and nearly all the manufacturing establish- 

 ments of the country. 



In this latitude the Appalachian mountains lie in three distinct 

 and parallel ranges. The outer known as the Highland; the inner 

 as the Shawangunk ; and the western as the Cattskills, farther 

 south as the Alleghany mountains. 



The former culminate at West Point, and here the Hudson 

 river finds passage through them. This range lies in short paral- 

 lel ridges of short extent, with their termini shot by each other, 

 and separated by narrow and beautiful cloves, or valleys. Lying 

 west of them is the " Great Valley," co-extensive with the whole 

 range from Georgia into Canada. 



