112 THE MOUNTAIN. 



sphere of uses to man, revealing worlds of economics, of 

 which the present chapter of statistics gives no shadow of 

 intimation. 



It would seem from the geological and geographic struc- 

 ture of the continents, as parts of the architecture of the 

 globe, and their connection with the oceans of water on 

 both sides, together with their relationship to the meteoric 

 elements and forces, or ocean of air above, that some pri- 

 mordial contract must have existed on the question of water 

 as one of the few original trustworthy elements of the world, 

 and that an infinite supply as a planetary agent was re- 

 quired to fill the bond for the honest pronunciation and real- 

 ization of the destiny of this hemisphere. The prophet who 

 has its special details to foretell, the political economist who 

 has its tariffs to fix, or the statistician who has its tables of 

 forces to establish, have each an exhaustless theme ; and the 

 happy genius of the hydrography and hydrology of the 

 Americas has the side of a planet upon which to project his 

 diagrams. 



In this place there is only a verse to recite of the grand 

 old poem of waters called Appalachian, it might be said still 

 less, a single line to spell out, viz. the waters of the 



ALLEGHANY MOUNTAIN MINERAL AND PURE. 



The wrinkled swell on the Atlantic side of the continent, 

 forming the Appalachian mountain range, as referred to in 

 the chapter on geology, forms a series of hydrographic axis, 

 to which the rivers on that side of North America owe their 

 origin. And here the rock-skeleton of the globe shows its 

 usual despotism in necessitating geographic features, style 

 of topography, and consequently hydrography. 



As a result, we find that from certain points of elevation, 

 or Appalachian centres, there are presented a series of water- 

 sheds between the inclined plane which stretches from the 

 Atlantic Ocean to the highest range of Alleghany peaks, 

 and the inclined plane which stretches westward and south- 



