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: 
A. Guyot on the Appalachian Mountain System. 171 
ter and the Big Pigeon river stretches the long chain of the Pis- 
gah and the New Found mountains. Further to the south the 
elevated chain of the Great Balsam mountains separates the ba- 
sins of the Big Pigeon and the Tuckasegee; next comes the chain 
of the Cowee mountains between the latter river and the Little 
Tennessee. Finally the double chain of the Nantihala and Val- 
ley River mountains separates the two great basins of the Little 
Tennessee and the Hiwassee. The bottom of these basins pre- 
serves in the middle, an altitude of from 2000 to 2700 feet. The 
height of these transverse chains is greater than that of the Blue 
Ridge, for they are from 5000 to 6000 feet and upwards; and 
the gaps which cross them are as high, and often higher than 
those of the Blue Ridge. In these interior basins are also found 
groups, more or less isolated, like that of the Black mountains, 
which, with the Smoky mountains, present the most elevated 
points of the system. 
Here then through an extent of more than 150 miles, the mean 
height of the valley from which the mountains rise is more than 
2000 feet; the mountains which reach 6000 feet are counted 
by scores, and the loftiest peaks rise to 6700 feet; while at the 
north, in the group of the White mountains, the base is scarcely 
1000 feet, the gaps 2000 feet, and Mount Washington, the only 
one which rises above 6000 feet, is still 400 feet below the height 
of the Black Dome of the Black Mountains. Here then in all re- 
