GENERAL CONFIGURATION. 



^dges, which, after having incorporated themselves 

 with the preceding chain, extend from north-east to^ 

 south-west across the states of New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Maryland, and Virginia, increasing their dis- 

 tance from the sea as they proceed southward. It > 

 is a singular fact, in geography, that several of these 

 ridges intersect, at right angles, the course of thq 

 largest rivers of the United States that run into the 

 Atlantic, leaving a passage for them only through 

 breaches, which attest, that the force of the watei^ 

 alone has overcome the obstacle opposed to their pas- 

 sage. These ridges, having continued parallel to 

 each other, till they arrive at the frontiers of Virgi- 

 nia and North Carolina, unite there into a knot, 

 which may be called the Alleghany Arch, because 

 the principal chain embraces there in a curve all 

 its collaterals from the east. A little farther south, 

 but still in North Carolina, a second knot unites to 

 the Alleghany all its collaterals from the west,* and 

 forms a culminating point of heads of rivers ; the 

 great Kanhaway issuing from it toward the north, 

 the Holston, or northern branch of the Tenessee, 

 toward the west, and the Pedee, the Santee, and all 

 the other rivers of the two Carolinas, toward the 

 east. From this knot likewise runs off to the west 

 a ridge of mountains, which by one bifurcation to 

 the north-west furnishes the numerous branches of 

 the Kentucky ; and by a second, directly west, 

 stretches, under the name of the Cumberland moun- 

 tains, across the state of Tenessee ; where it divides 

 north and south the basin of the rivers Tenessee and 

 Cumberland, till they open into the Ohio: while the^ 



