INTRODUCTION. 
CHAPTER I, 
GEOGRAPHICAL. 
Situation . — The State of North Carolina is situated on the Atlantic 
slope of the Appalachian mountains, in the middle latitude of the United 
States, half way between Lake Erie, (the boundary of Canada,) and the 
Gulf of Mexico, being included (nearly) between the parallels 34° 
and 36£° north latitude, and between the meridians 75-£° and 84£° 
west longitude, and extending from the sea coast to the crest of the 
Smoky mountains, which is the highest portion of the Appalachian 
range. 
Area , dec . — The extreme length of the State from east to west is 485 
miles, and the greatest breadth 188 miles, and its area 50,700 square miles ; 
which is a little more than that of New York, almost exactly that of 
England, and just one fortieth of that of all the (37) States, (nearly the 
average size, therefore), and one seventieth of the area of the United 
States and Territories, and one-thousandth part of the land surface of the 
globe. 
Sub-Divisions . — The State is divided into 93 counties, the average area 
of a county being between 500 and 600 square miles, or about 23 miles 
square. 
Boundaries . — The State is usually described as bounded on the north 
by the parallel of 36° 30' which divides it from Virginia; on 
the south by a line running north-west from Goat Island, on the coast, 
(latitude 33° 56'), to the parallel of 35° and then along that par- 
allel to Tennessee ; and on the west by the Smoky mountains. These 
are the limits claimed by the State itself in the Revised Statutes. In fact, 
the matter is not nearly so simple. It is highly probable that the only 
portion of the State boundary which is known, or ascertainable with any 
thing like accuracy, is the eastern or oceanic, and a small part of the 
western. A few thousand miles of territory, more or less, seems to have 
been a matter of so small moment to the forefathers of the Common- 
wealth for the last hundred years, that no care has been taken to secure 
the location of lines even approximately accordant with the boundaries 
claimed; or indeed the location , in any proper sense, of any boundaries 
at all, where nature has not taken the trouble to fix them for us beyond 
a peradventure. 
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