16 



Having no ports but our rivers and creeks, this Qiiei-y 

 has been answered under tlie i)receding one. 



QUERY IV. 



A NOTiCF. of its Mountains ? 



For the particular geo<rra[ihy of our mountains I 

 must refer to Fry and Jefferson''s wiap of Virginia; 

 and to Evans's analysis of his map of America, for a 

 more j)hilosophical vievv of tliem than is to be found 

 in any other work. It is worthy oC notice, that our 

 mountains are not solitary and scattered confusedly 

 over the face of the rouutry ; but that they commence 

 at about 150 miles from the sea-coast, are disposed in 

 ridges oiie behind another, running nearly parallel 

 with the sea-coast, though r;ither approaching it as 

 thev advance north-eastwardlv. To the s«)uth-west, 

 as the tract of country between tlie sea-coast and the 

 INlississippi becotnes narrower, the mountains converge 

 into a single ridge, whioii, as it approaches the Gulph 

 of Mexico, subsides into pla'n country, and gives rise 

 to some of the waters of that gulph, and i)articularly to 

 a river called the Apalachicola, {)rfd)ably from the 

 Apalachies, an Indian nation formerly residing on it. 

 Hence the mountams giving rise to that river, and seen 

 from its various parts, were called the Apalacbian 

 mountains, being in fact the end or termination oidy of 

 the great ridges passing through the continent. Euro- 

 pean geographers however extended the name north- 

 \var<lly as far as the mountains extended ; some giving 

 it, after their separation into different ridges, to the 

 Blue ridge, others to the IS'orth mountain, others to the 

 Alleghaney, others to the Laurel rifige, as may be seen 

 in tlieir different maps. J>ut the fact I believe is, that 

 none of these ridiies were ever known l)y that name to 

 the inhabitants, either native or enugrant, but as they 

 saw thern so called in European maps. Jn the same 

 direction generally are the veins of limestone, coal, and 



