186 National Geographic Magazine. 



these plains are not penetrated by rivers, they are a white sea- 

 sand, about twenty feet deep and perfectly barren, as no mixture 

 of soil helps to enrich them. But the borders of the rivers, 

 which descend from the uplands, are rendered fertile by the soil 

 washt down with the floods and mixt with the sands gathered 

 from the sea. The substratum of sea-mud, shells and other 

 foreign subjects is a perfect confirmation of this supposition. 

 And hence it is that for 40 or 50 miles inland and all the way 

 from the Navesinks to Cape Florida, all is a perfect bari'en where 

 the wash from the uplands has not enriched the borders of the 

 rivers ; or some ponds and defiles have not furnished proper 

 support for the growth of white cedars 



" From this rief of rocks, over which all the rivers fall, to that 

 chain of broken hills, called the South mountain, there is the 

 distance of 50, 60 or '70 miles of very uneven ground, rising 

 sensibly as you advance further inland, and may be denominated 

 the Upland. This consists of veins of different kinds of soil and 

 substrata some scores of miles in length ; and in some places 

 overlaid with little ridges and chains of hills. The declivity of 

 the whole gives great rapidity to the streams ; and our violent 

 gusts of rain have washt it all into gullies, and carried down the 

 soil to enricli the borders of the rivers in the Lower Plains. 

 These inequalities render half the country not easily capable of 

 culture, and impoverishes it, where torn up by the plow, by daily 

 washing away the richer mould that covers the surface. 



" The South mountain is not in ridges like the Endless moun- 

 tains, but in small, broken, steep, stoney hills ; nor does it run 

 with so much regularity. In some places it gradually degenerates 

 to nothing, not to appear again for some miles, and in others it 

 spreads several miles in breadth. Between South mountain and 

 ,the hither chain of the Endless mountains (often for distinction 

 called the North mountain, and in some places the Kittatinni and 

 Pequelin), there is a valley of pretty even good land, some 8, 10 

 or 20 miles wide, and is the most considerable quantity of 

 valuable land that the English are possest of ; and runs through 

 New Jersey, Pensilvania, Mariland and Virginia. It has yet 

 obtained no general name, but may properly enough be called 

 Piemont, from its situation. Besides conveniences always attend- 

 ing good land, this valley is everywhere enriched with Limestone. 



" The Endless mountains, so called from a translation of the 

 Indian name bearing that signification, come next in order. 

 They are not confusedly scattered and in lofty peaks overtopping 

 one another, but stretch in long uniform ridges scarce half a mile 

 perpendicular in any place above the intermediate vallies. Their 

 name is expressive of their extent, though no doubt not in a 



literal sense The mountains are almost all so many 



ridges with even tops and nearly of a height. To look from 

 these hills into the lower lands is but, as it were, into an ocean of 

 woods, swelled and deprest here and there by little inequalities, 

 not to be distinguished one part from another any more than the 



