392 Geographical Notices. 
tain chains. Here the chain of the Great Smoky mountains 
which extends from the deep cut of the French Broad at Paint 
Rock, to that, not less remarkable, of the Little Tennessee, is the 
master chain of that region and of the whole Alleghany system. 
Though its highest summits are a few feet below the highest 
peaks of the Black Mountain, it presents on that extent of 65 
miles a continuous series of high peaks, and an average elevation 
not to be found in any other district, and which give to it a greater 
importance in the geographical structure of that vast system of 
mountains. The gaps or depressions never fall below 5000 feet 
except towards the southwest and beyond Forney Ridge, and 
the number of peaks, the altitude of which exceeds 6000 feet, 
is indeed very large. On the opposite side, to the southeast, the 
Blue Ridge also rises again to a considerable height, in the 
stately mountains of the Great Hogback and Whiteside, which 
nearly reach 5000 feet, and keeps on in a series of peaks scarcely 
less elevated far beyond the boundary of Georgia. 
Moreover the interior, between the Smoky mountains and the 
Blue Ridge, is filled with chains which offer peaks higher still 
than the latter. The compact and inarieatenk cluster of high 
mountains, which form the almost unknown wilderness covering 
the southern portion of Haywood and Jackson counties, is Te- 
markable by its massiveness and the number of lofty peas 
which are crowded within a comparatively narrow space. The 
Cold mountain chain, which constitutes one of its main axes, 
shows a long series of broad tops, nearly all of which exceed 
6000 feet. Near the south end, but west of it, not far from the 
head waters of the French Broad, the Pigeon and the Tuckasee- 
gee waters, Mount Hardy raises its dark and broad head to the 
height of 6138. Still further, to the northwest, the group cul- 
minates in the Richland Balsam, 6425 feet, which divides the 
waters of the two main branches of Pigeon river and of the 
Caney fork of the Tuckaseegee. Amos Plott’s Balsam, 10. the 
midst of the great Balsam chain, which runs in a parallel direc- 
tion between the two main chains, measures 6278 feet. Consid- 
ering therefore these great features of physical structure and the 
considerable elevation of the valleys which form the base 0 
these high chains, we may say that this vast cluster of high- 
lands between the French Broad and the Tuckaseegee rivers, 18 
the culminating region of the great Appalachian system. 
New Map oF Tae ALLEGHANY System, BY Mr. E. SAN- 
poz.—The measurements of Professor Guyot, just referred to, 
he has examined. 
These data, with the exception of those collected in the past 
summer, have been employed by Mr. Ernest Sandoz, a nephew 
