CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



and carboniferous rocks of New York and Penn- 

 sylvania, which were long supposed to be primary 

 granite, &c. The igneous agency, which at first 

 raised the western range, is still active at intervals 

 throughout its course. The cretaceous beds in 

 Texas and Nebraska shew that the Mexican Gulf 

 once covered those states. The Tertiary formation 

 is developed as a band of about 60 miles, forming 

 the southern extremity of North America, and 

 stretching from North Carolina to the peninsula 

 of Yucatan, leaving the coast-line only at the 

 delta of the Mississippi. The only post-tertiary 

 bed is the boulder-clay, which largely occurs in 

 the region north of 40 N. lat, and which is so 

 called from the immense boulders which it con- 

 tains, some of them being as much as one or two 

 thousand tons in weight 



CLIMATE BOTANY ZOOLOGY. 



A continent of such vast extent necessarily 

 presents a great variety of climate. It may be 

 remarked generally, that the west coast is warmer 

 than the east : at New Archangel, for instance, in 

 what used to be Russian America, the mean tem- 

 perature is 12 Fahrenheit above freezing ; at 

 Nain, in Labrador, in the same latitude, it is 7 

 below freezing. The east coast, again, is colder 

 than the west coast of Europe ; the difference 

 between Nain and Gottenburg in Sweden being 

 about 21. This difference, however, diminishes 

 towards the south ; New York is only 7 colder 

 than Naples, and Florida has the same tempera- 

 ture as Cairo. 



The higher temperature of the west of Europe, 

 as compared with the opposite coast of North 

 America, is owing, partly at least, to the Gulf 

 Stream (see PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY), which 

 carries the warm water of the tropical seas into 

 the latitude of Britain and Norway, while a cold 

 current from the polar seas flows south along the 

 east coast of America. 



On the discovery of America, Europeans re- 

 garded with astonishment its vegetable and animal 

 productions, so different from all that they had 

 ever seen before. The difference is least remark- 

 able in the northern regions. There the vegetation 

 greatly resembles that of Lapland in Europe 

 dwarf willows, larches, birches, and pines ; mosses 

 and lichens ; and a scanty herbage, interspersed 

 by a few wild-flowers and berries during summer. 

 In the Canadas, and generally in the basin of the 

 St Lawrence, the true forests of American pine 

 and fir prevail, though the trees are inferior in 

 size to those of the United States. Interspersed 

 with these, and becoming more frequent as we 

 proceed southward, are the white cedar, sugar- 

 maple, basswood, hickory, several species of oak, 

 and wild cherry. Here also flourish the Canadian 

 lily, the ginseng, Venus's fly-trap ; the cultivated 

 grains and fruits of temperate Europe ; with 

 tobacco, hemp, and flax. In the United States 

 which present three very different zones of cli- 

 mate are found a greater variety of species than 

 in almost any other region of the same dimensions. 

 The first zone, north of lat. 44, exhibits birch, elm, 

 red and white pines, sugar and other maples, a 

 variety of oaks, and the vegetation common to 

 Canada. Between this zone and 35, oaks, ash, 

 hickory, plane, white cedar, sassafras, witch-hazel, 

 cornel, yellow birch, and red maple become more 



90S 



frequent, as do also fine flowering-climbers and 

 aquatics. South of this middle zone, and up to 

 27, most of the foregoing are found, with decid- 

 uous cypress, Carolina poplar, magnolias, swamp- 

 hickory, lobelias, and a greater variety of climbers 

 and aquatics. South of 27, the vegetation merges 

 into the tropical, or that to be described under 

 the West Indies and South America. As already 

 stated, all the common garden-fruits of Europe 

 are reared in the north ; pomegranates, melons, 

 figs, grapes, olives, almonds, oranges, &c. in the 

 southern zone. Maize is grown all south of 

 Maine ; tobacco, as far north as lat. 40 ; cotton, 

 to 37; the sugar-cane, to 32 ; rice, in the Caro- 

 linas, Louisiana, and Georgia ; wheat, all over the 

 Union ; oats and rye, principally in the north ; 

 hemp, flax, and hops, chiefly in the western and 

 middle districts. 



The Fauna of North America is in many 

 respects peculiar. Of mammalia, we may men- 

 tion the tailed monkeys of Mexico, the puma, 

 lynx, glutton, wolf, American fox ; polar, black, 

 and grisly bears, badger, otter, racoon, opossum, 

 beaver, skunk, ermine ; prairie-dog; bison, wapiti, 

 prong-horned antelope ; moose, red, Virginian, and 

 other deer. Among birds the white-headed and 

 other eagles, various vultures, wild turkey, Canada 

 goose, passenger-pigeon, bell-bird, mocking-bird, 

 humming-birds, &c. Of reptiles the alligator, 

 tortoise, rattlesnake, black-snake, siren, &c. Of 

 fish, a vast and useful variety as cod, sprat, 

 mackerel, salmon ; crab, oyster, and other shell- 

 fish. Of useful insects, the continent possesses 

 the bee and cochineal insect, and is infested 

 with the mosquito. All the domestic animals of 

 Europe have been introduced with success. 



POPULATION COUNTRIES. 



The people who inhabited the continent at the 

 time of its discovery in 1492, belonged exclusively 

 to the American variety of our species, but subdi- 

 visible into numerous families and tribes, differing 

 not so much in physical aspect as in manners 

 and customs. Without descending to minutiae, 

 the aborigines might be classed into the Aztecs, 

 a civilised race who inhabited Mexico, and had 

 made considerable progress in the domestic arts ; 

 the other Indian tribes, who led a savage life, 

 obtaining their subsistence chiefly by hunting and 

 fishing ; and the Esquimaux, who peopled, as they 

 do now, the shores of the northern seas. Soon 

 after the discovery, several European settlements 

 were formed at various points along the eastern 

 shores of the continent, from the Isthmus of 

 Panama to the Gulf of St Lawrence ; and these 

 settlements have been gradually extending, either 

 by purchase from the natives or by conquest, till 

 now nearly the whole of the country may be said 

 to be under European supremacy, before which 

 the Red Man is gradually but surely passing 

 away. The Spaniards colonised Mexico ; the 

 French settlements extended along the St Law- 

 rence and Mississippi ; and the English chiefly 

 along the eastern shores ; where also settled 

 Scotch, Dutch, Germans, and Irish. Out of all 

 these have been formed the now dominant Anglo- 

 American family, which uses the English tongue, 

 but which is beginning to develop mental and 

 temperamental characteristics that are quite dis- 

 tinguishable from English. In addition to the 



