CXL 
CHAIN OF.ALPS IN AMERICA, 
inconfiderable fpace between it and the Pacific Ocean ; and .frequently detached 
branches jut into the fea, and form promontories ; which, with parts of the chain 
itfelf, were often feen by our navigators in the courfe of their voyage. Some 
branches, as we have before obferved, extend towards the eaft, but not to any 
great diftance. A plain, rich in woods and favannas, {warming with Bifons or 
Buffaloes, Stags, and Virginian Deer, with Bears, and great variety of game, 
occupies an amazing traét, from the great lakes of Canada, as low as the gulph of 
Mexico ; and eaftward to the other great chain of mountains, the palachian, 
which are the A/ps of that fide of northern America. 1 imagine its commencement 
to be about lake Champlain and lake George, with branches pointing obliquely to 
the river St. Laurence eaftward, and rifing on its oppofite coafts: others extending, 
with lowering progrefs, even into our poor remnant of the new world, Nova Scotia. 
The main chain paffes through the province of New York, where it is diftinguifh- 
ed by the name of the Highlands, and lies within forty miles of the Atlantic. 
From thence it recedes from the fea, in proportion as it advances fouthward ; and 
near its extremity in South Carolina is three hundred miles diftant from the water. 
It confifts of feveral parallel ridges *, divided by moft enchanting vallies, and 
generally cloathed with variety of woods. Thhefe ridges rife gradually from the 
eaft one above the other, to the central ; from which they gradually fall to the 
weft, into the vaft plains of the AZifijipi. The middle ridge is of an enormous 
bulk and height. The whole extends in breadth about feventy miles; and in 
many places leaves great chafms for the difcharge of the vaft and numerous rivers 
which rife in the bofoms of the mountains, and empty themfelves into the Atlantic 
ocean, after yiclding a matchlefs navigation to the provinces they water. In 
p. xcv, I have given a view of the immenfe elevated plain in the Ruffian em- 
pire. Beyond the branch of the Apalachian mountains, called The Endle/s, is 
another of amazing extent, nearly as high as the mountains themfelves+. ‘This 
plain, (called the Upper Plains) is exceedingly rich land; begins at the Mohock’s 
river; reaches to within a fmall diftance of lake Ontario ; and to the weftward 
forms part of the extenfive plains of the Ohio, and reaches to an unknown diftance 
beyond the Miffifip:. Vaft rivers take their rife, and fall to every point of the 
compafs ; into lake Ontario, into Hudjfon’s river, and into the Delawar and Su/- 
quehanna, he tide of the Hudj/on’s river flows through its deep-worn bed far 
up, even to within a {mall diftance of the head of the Delawar ; which, after a 
© Doktor Garden. See alfo Mr. Lewis Evans's Effays and map. Philadelphia, 2d ed. p. 6, &c. 
+ Mr. Lewis Evans, p. 9, and map. 
furious 
