Physical Aspects. The province occupies, roughly speaking, | smaller channels seam the whole face of the country carrying off the upper basin of the Ganges and the Jumna, corresponding to the Hindostan proper of the Mahommedan chroniclers. A large semi-circular tract, comprising the valleys of the Gogra and the Gumti, has long been separated from the remainder of the great plain as the kingdom of Oudh, and though since 1877 it has been under the administrative charge of a lieutenantgovernor, it retains certain features of its former status as a chief-commissionership. The province includes the whole upper portion of the wide Gangetic basin, from the Himalayas and the Punjab plain to the Vindhyan plateau, and the lowlying ricefields of Behar. Taken as a whole, the lieutenantgovernorship consists of the richest wheat-bearing country in India, irrigated both naturally by the rivers which take their rise in the northern mountains, and artificially by the magnificent system of canals which owe their origin to British enterprise. It is studded with villages, interspersed at greater distances with commercial towns. Except during the hot season, when the crops are off the fields, the general aspect in normal years is that of a verdant and well-tilled but very monotonous plain, only merging into hilly or mountainous country at the extreme edges of the basin on the south and north. The course of the great rivers marks the prevailing slope of the land, which falls away from the Himalayas, the Rajputana uplands, and the Vindhyan plateau south-eastwards towards the Bay of Bengal. The chief natural features of the province are thus determined by the main streams, whose alluvial deposits first formed the central portion of the United Provinces; while the currents afterwards cut deep channels through the detritus they brought down from the ring of hills or uplands. The extreme or north-western Himalayan region comprises the native state of Garhwal, with the British districts of Dehra Dun, Naini Tal, Almora and Garhwal. The economic value of this mountainous tract is almost confined to the export of forest produce. South of the Himalayas, from which it is separated by valleys or duns, is the Siwalik range, which slopes down to the fruitful plain of the Doab (two rivers), a large irregular horn-shaped tongue of land enclosed between the Ganges and Jumna. The great boundary rivers flow through low-lying valleys fertilized by their overflow or percolation, while a high bank leads up to the central upland, which, though naturally dry and unproductive except where irrigated by wells, has been transformed by various canal systems. This favoured region may be regarded as the granary of upper India. North of the Ganges, and enclosed between that river and the Himalayas and Oudh, lies the triangular plain of Rohilkhand. This tract presents the same general features as the Gangetic valley, varied by the damp and pestilential submontane region of the tarai on the north-east, at the foot of the Kumaon hills. South of the Jumna is the poor and backward region of Bundelkhand, comprising the districts of Jalaun, Jhansi, Hamirpur and Banda. The soil is generally rocky and unfertile, and the population impoverished, scanty and ignorant. The southernmost portion of Bundelkhand is much cut up by spurs of sandstone and granite hills, running down from the Vindhyan system; but the northern half near the Jumna has a somewhat richer soil, and comes nearer in character to the plain of Doab. Below the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna at Allahabad the country begins to assume the appearance of the Bengal plains, and once more expands northwards to the foot of the Nepal Himalayas. This tract consists of three portions, separated by the Ganges and the Gogra. The division south of the Ganges comprises portions of Allahabad, Benares and Ghazipur, together with the whole of Mirzapur, and in general features somewhat resembles Bundelkhand, but the lowlands along the river bank are more fertile. The triangular tract between the Ganges and the Gogra and the boundary of Oudh is the most fertile corner of the Gangetic plain, and contains the densest population. The transGogra region presents a wilder, submontane appearance. Oudh forms the central portion of the great Gangetic plain, sloping downwards from the Nepal Himalayas in the north-east to the Ganges on the south-west. For 60 m. along the northern border of Gonda and Bahraich districts the boundary extends close up to the lower slopes of the Himalayas, embracing the damp and unhealthy submontane region known as the tarai. To the westward of this the northern boundary recedes a little from the mountain tract, and the larai in this portion of the range has been for the most part ceded to Nepal. With the exception of a belt of government forest along the northern frontier, the rest of the province consists of a fertile and densely peopled plain. The greatest elevation (600 ft.) is attained in the jungle-clad plateau of Khairagarh in Kheri district, while the extreme south-east frontier is only 230 ft. above sea-level. Four great rivers traverse or skirt the plain of Oudh in converging courses Ganges, the Gumti, the Gogra and the Rapti. Numerous Ail the larger rivers, except the Gumti, as well as most of the smaller the surplus drainage in the rains, but drying up in the hot season. streams, have beds hardly sunk below the general level; and in time of floods they burst through their banks and carve out new channels. Numerous shallow ponds or jhils mark the former beds of the shifting against inundation, but also as reservoirs for irrigation. The soil rivers. These jhils have great value, not only as preservatives of Oudh consists of a rich alluvial deposit, the detritus of the Himalayan system washed down into the Ganges valley. Usually a light loam, it passes here and there into pure clay, or degenerates occa of extensive usar plains, found in the southern and western districts, sionally into barren sand. The uncultivable land consists chiefly and covered by the deleterious saline efflorescence known as reh. Oudh possesses no valuable minerals. Salt was extensively manufactured during native rule, but the British government has prohibited this industry for fiscal reasons. Nodular limestone (kanker) occurs in considerable deposits, and is used as road metal. The villages lie thickly scattered, consisting of low thatched cottages, and surrounded by patches of garden land, or groves of banyan, pipal and pakar trees. The dense foliage of the mango marks the site of almost every little homestead, no less an area Tamarinds overhang the huts of the poorer classes, while the seat than 1000 sq. m. being covered by these valuable fruit-trees. of a wealthy family may be recognized by clumps of bamboo. Plantains, guavas, jack-fruit, limes and oranges add further beauty to the village plots. The flora of the government reserved forests is rich and varied. The sal tree yields the most important timber; the finest logs are cut in the Khairagarh jungles and floated down the Gogra to Bahramghat, where they are sawn. The hard wood of the shisham is also valuable; and several other timber-trees afford materials for furniture or roofing shingle. Among the scattered alike for its edible flowers, its fruits and its timber. The jhils supply jungles in various parts of the province, the makua tree is prized the villages with wild rice, the roots and seeds of the lotus, and the singhara water-nut. The fauna comprises most of the animals and birds common to the Gangetic plain; but the wild elephant is now practically unknown, except when a stray specimen loses its way at the foot of the hills. Tigers are now only found in any numbers in the wilds of Khairagarh. Leopards still haunt the cane-brakes and thickets along the banks of the rivers; and nilgai and antelopes abound. Game birds consist of teal and wild duck, snipe, jungle fowl and peacock. Rivers. The Ganges and its affluents, the Jumna, the Ramganga and the Gogra, rise in the Himalayas, and meet within the province. In addition there are the following secondary streams: the Kalinadi and the Hindan flow through the Doab; the Chambal intersects the trans-Jumna tract; in Bundelkhand the principal streams are the Betwa and the Ken; the Ramgana, rising in Garhwal, pursues a tortuous course through Rohilkhand; the Gumti flows past Lucknow and Jaunpur to join the Ganges; the trans-Gogra region is divided into two nearly equal parts by the Rapti. These rivers are constantly modifying the adjacent lands. A small obstruction may divert the stream from one side to the other. The deep stream corrodes and cuts down the high ground; but meanwhile alluvial flats are gradually piled up in the shallows. The tributary streams get choked at the mouth and assist the process of deposition. The deposit is greatest when the floods of the rainy season are subsiding. Climate. The climate as a whole is hot and dry. The Himalayan districts of course are cool, and have a much greater rainfall than the plains. They are succeeded by a broad submontane belt, the tarai, which is rendered moist by the mountain torrents, and is covered by forest from end to end. This region bears the reputation of being the most unhealthy in all India, and in many parts only the acclimatized aborigines can withstand its deadly malaria. The plain country is generally warm and dry, the heat becoming more oppressive as the general level of the country sinks towards Allahabad and Benares, or among the hills of Bundelkhand. There are three seasons. The cold changes gradually to the hot; the hot season gives way abruptly to the rains; and the rains again change gradually into the cold season. In point of humidity and temperature the province lies half-way between Bengal and the Punjab. The rainfall varies from 30 to 44 in. in the plains, increasing gradually towards the Himalaya. The temperature in the hot season ranges from 86° to 115° F., and even higher, in the shade. Minerals.-Owing to the loamy nature of the soil, few minerals of any kind are found. Iron and coal exist in the southern hills. A little coal was extracted from Mirzapur in 1896, but the enterprise was dropped. Iron, copper, sapphires, &c., are said to be obtain able in the Himalaya. It has been suggested that the oily water known as telya pani indicates the presence of petroleum. Agriculture. Out of a total area of 104,075 sq. m. in the British districts of the province, over 54,000 sq. m. are under cultivation. The course of tillage comprises two principal harvests: the kharif. or autumn crops, sown in June and reaped in October or November and the rabi, or spring crops, sown in October or November, and reaped in March or April. The great agricultural staple is wheat, but millets and rice are also largely cultivated. Speaking broadly. rice and oilseeds predominate in the eastern and sub-Himalayan . ain region; | sculpture which, having become nearly quiescent at the close of the Mesozoic cycle, became active again in Tertiary and later times. districts, millets and cotton in Bundelkhand out one ng the Ant Land Tenure.-Owing to historical reasons, the system of tenure is not uniform. In the Benares division, which was first portion to come under British administration, the land rever was permanently fixed in 1795, on the same principles that had L previously adopted in Bengal; and there a special class of tenant as well as the landlords, enjoy a privileged status. Throughout the rest of the province of Agra, almost all of which was acquired between 1801 and 1803, temporary settlements are in force, usually for a term of thirty years, the revenue being assessed at one-half of the "assets or estimated rental value. The settlement is made with the landholders or zamindars, who are frequently a group of persons holding distinct shares in the land, and may be themselves petty cultivators. No proprietary rights superior to those of the actual landowners are recognized. The only privileged class of tenants are those possessing "occupancy" rights, as defined by statute. These rights, which are heritable but not transferable, protect the tenant against eviction, except for default in payment of rent, while the rent may not be enhanced except by mutual agreement or by order of a revenue court. 'Occupancy" rights are acquired by continuous cultivation for ten years, but the cultivation need not be of the same holding. All other tenants are merely tenants-at-will. In Oudh, after the convulsion of the Mutiny, all rights in land were confiscated at a stroke, and the new system adop or great landlords. These talukdars had not all the same origin. The belts of structure and the cycles of erosion thus briefly described are recognizable with more or less continuity from the Gulf of St Lawrence 1500 m. south-westward to Alabama, where the deformed mountain structures pass out of sight under nearly horizontal strata of the Gulf coastal plain. But the dimensions of the several belts and the strength of the relief developed by their later rosion varies greatly along the system. In a north-eastern section, actically all of New England is occupied by the older crystalline the corresponding northern part of the stratified belt in the wrence and Champlain-Hudson valleys on the inland side of gland is comparatively free from the ridge-making rocks und farther south; and here the plateau member is ng replaced, as it were, by the Adirondacks, an outlier Man highlands of Canada which immediately succeeds ratified belt west of Lake Champlain. In a middle m, from the Hudson river in southern New York in southern Virginia, the crystalline belt is depression of its south-eastern part beneath beneath the strata of the Atlantic coastal the ocean; but the stratified belt is here markable series of ridges and valleys erosion on the many alternations of nd the plateau assumes full strength Mohawk valley which separates ar ridges of this middle section ntains. In a south-western mes importance in breadth the strength that it attached to the United Provincente stratified belt again Population.-Out of a total poplaville section. here of ridge-making hed first because The Middle ted was in the nature of a treaty between the state and the talukdars, no fewer than 40,691,818, or over arbitrarily limited Many were Rajput chiefs, ruling over their tribesmen by ancient 6,731,034 or 14% Mahommedans. The va hereditary right; while others were officials or court favourites, who persons belonging to all the other wine had acquired power and property during the long period of native Buddhists, Parsees, Christians, Jews, boys and legislation the talukdars were declared to possess permanent, guages in all are spoken in the provinces, out busy y has no analogy in the rest of India. By sanad (or patent) and by was only 268,930, or less than o-6% Walk wady nding misrule. On all the same status was now conferred-a status that heritable and transferable rights, with the special privilege of people 4527 speak Western Hindi, 3125 Ever alienation, either in lifetime or by will, notwithstanding the limits Bihari and 211 Central Pahari. imposed by Hindu or Mahommedan law. In addition most of them History.-If the present limits be slightly ex.. follow the rule of primogeniture, while a power of entail has recently the total area of Oudh. No " rights based on con 61% at the end of the term. Occupancy " less of been granted. The estates of talukdars extend over more than half direction so as to include Delhi and Patna, the U. tinuous cultivation are recognized in Oudh, but similar rights, here Indian history has been played. Here lay the scene, ke would contain the area on which almost the whis known as "sub-proprietary were granted to nexation. On the Madhya Desa or "middle country," of the second per possessed them within thirty years before annexation. other hand, there are no tenants-at-right in Oudh. Any person Aryan colonization, when the two great epics, the M admitted to the cultivation of land is entitled to hold it for seven bharata and Ramayana, were probably composed, and wher, the years at the same rent, which may not be advanced by more than religion of Brahmanism took form. Here Buddha was born, Manufactures. The principal manufactures are those of sugar, preached and died. Here arose the successive dynasties of indigo and coarse cotton cloth. Ornamental metal-work is made Asoka, of the Guptas, and of Harshavardhana, which for a at Benares. Among the factories on the English model are the thousand years exercised imperial sway over the greater part of Elgin and Muir cotton mills at Cawnpore, the Cawnpore tanneries India. Here is Ajodhya, the home of Rama, the most popular and leather factories, the Shahjahanpur rum distillery, and breweries of Hindu demigods; and also Benares and Muttra, the most at Mussoorie and Naini Tal. There are also woollen and jute mills, sacred of Hindu shrines. Here too were the Mahommedan iron and brass foundries, lac factories and oil-mills. The manufacture of synthetic indigo by German chemists has greatly affected capitals-Delhi, Agra, Allahabad, Jaunpur and Lucknow. the growth and manufacture of indigo, the indigo factories Here finally, at the crisis of the Mutiny, British dominion was decreasing in 1904-1905 from 402 to 252 permanently established in India. Trade. The export trade is chiefly confined to agricultural produce. The principal staples include wheat, oilseeds, raw cotton, indigo, sugar, molasses, timber and forest produce, dry-stuffs. ghee, opium and tobacco. The imports consist mainly of English piecegoods, metal-work, manufactured wares, salt and European goods. The chief centres of trade are Cawnpore, Allahabad, Mirzapur, Benares, Meerut and Moradabad. Irrigation.-The Doab is intersected by canals drawn from the great rivers. The major productive works are the upper and lower Ganges, the eastern Jumna, and the Agra canals. The greatest work in the province, and one of the greatest irrigation works in the world, is the upper Ganges canal, which is taken from the river where it leaves the hills, some 2 m. above Hardwar. In the first 20 m. of its course this gigantic canal crosses four great torrents. which bring down immense volumes of water in the rainy season. The first two are carried in massive aqueducts over the canal, the third is passed through the canal by a level-crossing, regulated by drop-gates, and the canal is taken over the fourth by an aqueduct. The total length of the main canal is 213 m., navigable throughout, and designed to irrigate 1,500,000 acres. The lower Ganges canal is taken from the river at Narora, 149 m. below Hardwar. After crossing in 55 m. four great drainage lines, it cuts into the Cawnpore, and 7 m. lower down into the Etawah, branches of the upper Ganges canal. These branches are now below the point of intersection, part of the lower Ganges canal system. The irrigating capacity of this canal is 1,250,000 acres. Railways. The province is well supplied with railways. The main line of the East Indian runs throughout south of the Ganges. which is bridged at Benares and Cawnpore. North of the river The political vicissitudes through which this tract of country passed in earlier times are described under INDIA: History. It will be sufficient here to trace the steps by which it passed under British rule. In 1765, after the battle of Buxar, when the nawab of Oudh had been decisively defeated and Shah Alam, the Mogul emperor, was a suppliant in the British camp, Lord Clive was content to claim no acquisition of territory. The whole of Oudh was restored to the Nawab, and Shah Alam received as an imperial apanage the province of Allahabad and Kora in the lower Doab, with a British garrison in the fort of Allahabad. Warren Hastings augmented the territory of Oudh by lending the nawab a British army to conquer Rohilkhand, and by making over to him Allahabad and Kora on the ground that Shah Alam had placed himself in the power of the Mahrattas. At the same time he received from Oudh the sovereignty over the province of Benares. Subsequently no great change took place until the arrival of Lord Wellesley, who acquired a very large accession of territory in two instalments. In 1801 he obtained from the nawab of Oudh the cession of Rohilkhand, the lower Doab, and the Gorakhpur division, thus enclosing Oudh on all sides except the north. In 1804, as the result of Lord Lake's victories in the Mahratta War, the rest of the Doab and part of Bundelkhand, together with N.E.-S.W. trend to crustal deformations which in very early geological time gave a beginning to what later came to be the Appalachian mountain system; but this system had its climax of deformation so long ago (probably in Permian time) that it has since then been very generally reduced to moderate or low relief, and owes its present altitude either to renewed elevations along the earlier lines or to the survival of the most resistant rocks as residual mountains. The oblique trend of the coast would be even more pronounced but for a comparatively modern crustal movement, causing a depression in the northeast, with a resulting encroachment of the sea upon the land, and an elevation in the south-west, with a resulting advance of the land upon the sea. The Pacific coast has been defined chiefly by relatively recent crustal deformations, and hence still preserves a greater relief than that of the Atlantic. The minor features of each coast will be mentioned in connexion with the land districts of which the coast-line is only the border. Agra and the guardianship of the old and blind emperor, Shah | hilly or mountainous. The Atlantic coast owes its obliqué Alam, at Delhi, were obtained from Sindia. In 1815 the Kumaon division was acquired after the Gurkha War, and a further portion of Bundelkhand from the peshwa in 1817. These new acquisitions, known as the ceded and conquered provinces, continued to be administered by the governor-general as part of Bengal. In 1833 an act of parliament was passed to constitute a new presidency, with its capital at Agra. But this scheme was never fully carried out, and in 1835 another statute authorized the appointment of a lieutenant-governor for the North-Western Provinces, as they were then styled. They included the Delhi territory, transferred after the Mutiny to the Punjab; and also (after 1853) the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, which in 1861 became part of the Central Provinces. Meanwhile Oudh remained under its nawab, who was permitted to assume the title of king in 1819. All protests against gross misgovernment during many years having proved useless, Oudh was annexed in 1856 and constituted a separate chief commissionership. Then followed the Mutiny, when all signs of British rule were for a time swept away throughout the greater part of the two provinces. The lieutenantgovernor died when shut up in the fort at Agra, and Oudh was only reconquered after several campaigns lasting for eighteen months. In 1877 the offices of lieutenant-governor of the NorthWestern Provinces and chief commissioner of Oudh were combined in the same person; and in 1902, when the new name of United Provinces was introduced, the title of chief commissioner was dropped, though Oudh still retains some marks of its former independence. See Gazetteer of the United Provinces (2 vols., Calcutta, 1908); and Theodore Morison, The Industrial Organization of an Indian Province (1906). UNITED STATES, THE, the short title usually given to the great federal republic which had its origin in the revolt of the British colonies in North America, when, in the Declaration of Independence, they described themselves as "The Thirteen United States of America." Officially the name is "The United States of America," but "The United States" (used as a singular and not a plural) has become accepted as the name of the country; and pre-eminent usage has now made its citizens "Americans," in distinction from the other inhabitants of North and South America. Boundaries and Area. The area of the United States, as here considered, exclusive of Alaska and outlying possessions, occupies a belt nearly twenty degrees of middle latitude in width, and crosses North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The southern boundary is naturally defined on the east by the Gulf of Mexico; its western extension crosses obliquely over the western highlands, along an irregular line determined by aggressive Americans of Anglo-Saxon stock against Americans of Spanish stock. The northern boundary, after an arbitrary beginning, finds a natural extension along the Great Lakes, and thence continues along the 49th parallel of north latitude to the Pacific (see Bulletin 171, U.S. Geological Survey). The area thus included is 3,026,789 sq. m2 I-PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Coast. The Atlantic coast of the United States is, with minor exceptions, low; the Pacific coast is, with as few exceptions, The following are the states of the Union (recognized abbreviations being given in brackets): Alabama (Ala.), Arizona (Ariz.), Arkansas Ark.), California (Cal.), Colorado (Col.), Connecticut (Conn.), Delaware (Del.), Florida (Fla.), Georgia (Ga.), Idaho, Illinois (IL), Indiana (Ind.), Iowa (la.), Kansas (Kan.), Kentucky (Ky.), Louisiana (La.), Maine (Me.), Maryland (Md.), Massachusetts (Mass), Michigan (Mich.), Minnesota (Minn.), Mississippi (Miss.). Missouri (Mo.), Montana (Mont-), Nebraska (Neb.), Nevada (Nev.), New Hampshire (N.H.), New Jersey (NJ), New Mexico (N. Mex.), New York (NY), North Carolina (N.C.), North Dakota (N. Dak.), Ohio (0.). Oklahoma (Okla). Oregon (Oreg.). Pennsylvania (Pa.), Rhode Island (R.L.), South Carolina (S.C.), South Dakota (S. Dak.), Tennessee (Tenn.), Texas (Tex.), Utah, Vermont (Vt.), Virginia (Va.), West Virginia (W. Va.), Washington (Wash.), Wisconsin (Wis.), Wyoming (Wyo.); together with the District of Columbia (D.C.). General Topography and Drainage.-The low Atlantic coast and the hilly or mountainous Pacific coast foreshadow the leading features in the distribution of mountains within the United States. The Appalachian system, originally forest-covered, on the eastern side of the continent, is relatively low and narrow; it is bordered on the south-east and south by an important coastal plain. The Cordilleran system on the western side of the continent is lofty, broad and complicated, with heavy forests near the north-west coast, but elsewhere with trees only on the higher ranges below the Alpine region, and with treeless or desert intermont valleys, plateaus and basins, very arid in the south-west. Between the two mountain systems extends a great central area of plains, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico northward, far beyond the national boundary, to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers that drain the Atlantic slope of the Appalachians are comparatively short; those that drain the Pacific slope include only two, the Columbia and the Colorado, which rise far inland, near the easternmost members of the Cordilleran system, and flow through plateaus and intermont basins to the ocean. The central plains are divided by a hardly perceptible height of land into a Canadian and a United States portion; from the latter the great Mississippi system discharges southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The upper Mississippi and some of the Ohio basin is the prairie region, with trees originally only along the watercourses; the uplands towards the Appalachians were included in the great eastern forested area; the western part of the plains has so dry a climate that its herbage is scanty, and in the south it is barren. The lacustrine system of the St Lawrence flows eastward from a relatively narrow drainage area. Relation of General Topography to Settlement.-The aboriginal occupants of the greater part of North America were comparatively few in number, and except in Mexico were not advanced beyond the savage state. The geological processes that placed a much narrower ocean between North America and western Europe than between North America and eastern Asia secured to the New World the good fortune of being colonized by the leading peoples of the occidental Old World, instead of by the less developed races of the Orient. The transoceanic invasion progressed slowly through the 17th and 18th centuries, delayed by the head winds of a rough ocean which was crossed only in slow sailing vessels, and by the rough "backwoods" of the Appalachians, which retarded the penetration of wagon roads and canals into the interior. The invasion was wonderfully accelerated through the 19th century, when the vast area of the treeless prairies beyond the Appalachians was offered land replaced sailing vessels and wagons. to the settler, and when steam transportation on sea and The frontier was then swiftly carried across the eastern half of the central plains, but found a second delay in its advance occasioned by the dry climate of the western plains. It was chiefly the mineral wealth of the Cordilleran region, first developed on the far Pacific slope, and later in many parts of the inner mountain ranges, that urged pioneers across the dry plains into the apparently inhospitable mountain region; there the adventurous new-comers rapidly worked out one mining district after another, exhausting and abandoning the smaller "camps" to early decay and rushing in feverish excitement to new-found river fields, but establishing important centres of varied industries in the more important mining districts. It was not until the settlers learned to adapt themselves to the methods of wide-range cattle raising and of farming by irrigation that the greater value of the far western interior was recognized as a permanent home for an agricultural population. The purchase of" Louisiana "—a great area west of the Mississippi river-from the French in 1803 has sometimes been said to be the cause of the westward expansion of the United States, but the Louisiana purchase has been better interpreted as the occasion for the expansion rather than its cause; for, as Lewis Evans of Philadelphia long ago recognized (1749), whoever gained possession of the Ohio Valley-the chief eastern part of the central plains-would inevitably become the masters of the continent. Physiographic Subdivisions.-The area of the United States may be roughly divided into the Appalachian belt, the Cordilleras and the central plains, as already indicated. These large divisions need physiographic subdivision, which will now be made, following the guide of "structure, process and stage "; that is, each subdivision or province will be defined as part of the earth's crust in which some similarity of geological structure prevails, and upon which some process or processes of surface sculpture have worked long enough to reach a certain stage in the cycle of physiographic development. sculpture which, having become nearly quiescent at the close of the Mesozoic cycle, became active again in Tertiary and later times. described are recognizable with more or less continuity from the The belts of structure and the cycles of erosion thus briefly Gulf of St Lawrence 1500 m. south-westward to Alabama, where the deformed mountain structures pass out of sight under nearly hori zontal strata of the Gulf coastal plain. But the dimensions of the several belts and the strength of the relief developed by their later erosion varies greatly along the system. In a north-eastern section, practically all of New England is occupied by the older crystalline belt; the corresponding northern part of the stratified belt in the St Lawrence and Champlain-Hudson valleys on the inland side of which abound farther south; and here the plateau member is New England is comparatively free from the ridge-making rocks wanting, being replaced, as it were, by the Adirondacks, an outlier of the Laurentian highlands of Canada which immediately succeeds the deformed stratified belt west of Lake Champlain. In a middle section of the system, from the Hudson river in southern New York to the James river in southern Virginia, the crystalline belt is narrowed, as if by the depression of its south-castern part beneath the Atlantic Ocean or beneath the strata of the Atlantic coastal plain which now represents the ocean; but the stratified belt is here broadly developed in a remarkable series of ridges and valleys determined by the action of erosion on the many alternations of strong and weak folded strata; and the plateau assumes full strength southward from the monoclinal Mohawk valley which separates it from the Adirondacks. The linear ridges of this middle section section the crystalline belt again assumes importance in breadth are often called the Alleghany Mountains. In a south-western and height, and the plateau member maintains the strength that it had in the middle section, but the intermediate stratified belt again has fewer ridges, because of the infrequence here of ridge-making strata as compared to their frequency in the middle section. The Middle Appala. chians. The middle section of the Appalachians, rather arbitrarily limited by the Hudson and the James rivers, may be described first because it contains the best representation of the three longitudinal belts of which the mountain system as a whole is composed. The mountain-making compression of the heavy series of Palaeozoic strata has here produced a marvellous series of rock folds with gently undulating axes, trending north-east and south-west through a belt 70 or 80 m. wide; no less wonderful is the form that has been produced by the processes of sculpture. The peculiar configuration of the ridges may be apprehended as follows: The pattern of the folded strata on the low-lying Cretaceous peneplain must have resembled the pattern of the curved grain of wood on a planed board. When the peneplain was uplifted the weaker strata were worn down almost to a lowland of a second generation, while the resistant sandstones, of which there are three chief members, retained a great part of their new-gained altitude in the form of long, narrow, even-crested ridges, well deserving of the there bending sharply in peculiar zigzags which give this Alleghany section of the mountains an unusual individuality. The postTertiary uplift, giving the present altitude of 1000 or 1500 ft. in Pennsylvania, and of 2500 or 3500 ft. in Virginia, has not significantly altered the forms thus produced; it has only incited the rivers to intrench themselves 100 or more feet beneath the lowlands of Tertiary erosion. The watercourses to-day are, as a rule, longitudinal, following the strike of the weaker strata in paths that they appear to have gained by spontaneous adjustment during the long Mesozoic cycle; but now and again they cross from one longitudinal valley to another by a transverse course, and there they have cut down sharp notches or "water-gaps" in the hard strata that else where stand up in the long even-crested ridges. The Appalachians.-The physiographic description of the Appalachian mountain system offers an especially good opportunity for the application of the genetic method based on structure, process and stage." This mountain system consists essentially of two belts: one on the south-east, chiefly of ancient and greatly deformed crystalline rocks, the other on the north-west, a heavy series of folded Palaeozoic strata; and with these it will be convenient to associate a third belt, farther north-west, consisting of the same Palaeozoic strata lying essentially horizontal and constituting the Appalachian plateau. The crystalline belt represents, at least in part, the ancient highlands from whose ruins the sandstones, shales and limestones of the stratified series were formed, partly as marine, partly as fluviatile deposits. The deformation of the Appalachians was accomplished in two chief periods of compressive deformation, one in early Palacozoic, the other about the close of Palaeozoic time, and both undoubtedly of long duration; the second one extended its effects farther north-name of Endless Mountains given them by the Indians, but here and west than the first. These were followed by a period of minor tilting and faulting in early Mesozoic, by a moderate upwarping in Tertiary, and by a moderate uplift in post-Tertiary time. The later small movements are of importance because they are related to the existing topography with which we are here concerned. Each of the disturbances altered the attitude of the mass with respect to the general base-level of the occan surface; each movement there. fore introduced a new cycle of erosion, which was interrupted by a later movement and the beginning of a later cycle. Thus interpreted, the Appalachian forms of to-day may be ascribed to three cycles of erosion: a nearly complete Mesozoic cycle, in which most of the previously folded and faulted mountain masses were reduced in Cretaceous time to a peneplain or lowland of small relief, surmounted, however, in the north-cast and in the south-west by monadnocks of the most resistant rocks, standing singly or in groups; an incomplete Tertiary cycle, initiated by the moderate Tertiary upwarping of the Mesozoic peneplain, and of sufficient length to develop mature valleys in the more resistant rocks of the crystalline belt or in the horizontal strata of the plateau, and to develop late mature or old valleys in the weaker rocks of the stratified belt. where the harder strata were left standing up in ridges; and a brief post-Tertiary cycle, initiated by an uplift of moderate amount and in progress long enough only to erode narrow and relatively immature valleys. Glacial action complicated the work of the latest cycle in the northern part of the system. In view of all this it is possible to refer nearly every element of Appalachian form to its appropriate cycle and stage of development. The more resistant rocks, even though dissected by Tertiary erosion, retain in their summit uplands an indication of the widespread peneplain of Cretaceous time, now standing at the altitude given to it by the Tertiary upwarping and post-Tertiary uplift; and the most resistant rocks surmount the Cretaceous pencplain as unconsumed monadnocks of the Mesozoic cycle. On the other hand, the weaker rocks are more or less completely reduced to lowlands by Tertiary erosion, and are now trenched by the narrow and shallow valleys of the short post-Tertiary cycle. Evidently, therefore, the Appalachians as we now see them are not the still surviving remnants of the mountains of late Palaeozoic deformation; they owe their present height chiefly to the Tertiary upwarping and uplifting, and their form to the normal processes of The transition from the strongly folded structure of the Alleghany ridges and valleys to the nearly horizontal structure of the Appala chian plateau is promptly made; and with the change of structure comes an appropriate change of form. The horizontal strata of the plateau present equal ease or difficulty of erosion in any direction; the streams and the submature valleys of the plateau therefore ramify in every direction, thus presenting a pattern that has been called insequent, because it follows no apparent control. Further mention of the plateau is made in a later section. The crystalline belt of the middle Appalachians, 60 or 80 m wide, is to-day of moderate height because the Tertiary upwarping was there of moderate amount. The height is greatest along the inner or north-western border of the belt, and here a sub-mountainous topography has been produced by normal dissection, chiefly in the Tertiary cycle; the valleys being narrow because the rocks are resistant. The relief is strong enough to make occupation difficult; the slopes are forested; the uplands are cleared and well occupied by farms and villages, but many of the valleys are wooded glens. With continued decrease of altitude south-eastward, the crystalline belt dips under the coastal plain, near a line marked by the Delaware river from Trenton to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and thence south-south-westward through Maryland and Virginia past the cities of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond. The Pennsylvania portion of the crystalline belt is narrow, as has been said, because of encroachment upon it by the inward overlap of the coastal plain; it is low because of small Tertiary uplift; but. But in general the dissection of the New England upland is as irregu still more, it is discontinuous, because of the inclusion of certain | belts of weak non-crystalline rock; here the rolling uplands are worn down to lowland belts, the longest of which reaches from the southern corner of New York, across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, into central Virginia. The middle section of the Appalachians is further distinguished from the north-eastern and south-western sections by the arrangeDrainage. ment of its drainage: its chief rivers rise in the plateau belt and flow across the ridges and valleys of the stratified belt and through the uplands of the crystalline belt to the sea. The rivers which most perfectly exemplify this habit are the Delaware, Susquehanna and Potomac; the Hudson, the north-eastern boundary of the middle section, is peculiar in having headwaters in the Adirondacks as well as in the Catskills (northern part of the plateau); the James, forming the south-western boundary of the section, rises in the inner valleys of the stratified belt, instead of in the plateau. The generally transverse course of these rivers has given In consequence of the general south-eastward slope of the highrise to the suggestion that they are of antecedent origin; but there lands and uplands of New England, the divide between the Atlantic are many objections to this over-simple, Gordian explanation. The rivers and those which flow northward and westward south-east course of the middle-section rivers is the result of many into the lowland of the stratified belt in Canada and Drainage. changes from the initial drainage; the Mesozoic and Tertiary up- New York is generally close to the boundary of these two physiowarpings were probably very influential in determining the present graphic districts. The chief rivers all flow south or south-east? general courses. they are the Connecticut, Merrimack, Kennebec, Penobscot and For the most part the rivers follow open valleys along belts of St John, the last being shared with the province of New Brunswick. weak strata; but they frequently pass through sharp-cut notches The drainage of New England is unlike that of the middle and in the narrow ridges of the stratified belt-the Delaware water-gap south-western Appalachians in the occurrence of numerous lakes is one of the deepest of these notches; and in the harder rocks of and falls. These irregular features are wanting south of the limits the crystalline belt they have eroded steep-walled gorges, of which of Pleistocene glaciation; there the rivers have had time, in the the finest is that of the Hudson, because of the greater height and latest cycle of erosion into which they have entered, to establish breadth of the crystalline highlands there than at points where the themselves in a continuous flow, and as a rule to wear down their other rivers cross it. The rivers are shallow and more or less broken courses to a smoothly graded slope. In New England also a wellby rapids in the notches; rapids occur also near the outer border established drainage undoubtedly prevailed in preglacial times; but of the crystalline belt, as if the rivers there had been lately incited partly in consequence of the irregular scouring of the rock floor, to downward erosion by an uplift of the region, and had not yet and even more because of the very irregular deposition of unstratified had time to regrade their courses. This is well shown in the falls and stratified drift in the valleys, the drainage is now in great disof the Potomac a few miles above Washington; in the rapids of order. Many lakes of moderate size and irregular outline have the lower Susquehanna; and in the falls of the Schuylkill, a branch been formed where drift deposits formed barriers across former which joins the Delaware at Philadelphia, where the water-power river courses; the lake outlets are more or less displaced from former has long been used in extensive factories. Hence rivers in the river paths. Smaller lakes were formed by the deposition of washed Appalachians are not navigable; it is only farther down-stream, drift around the longest-lasting ice remnants; when the ice finally where the rivers have been converted into estuaries and bays-such melted away, the hollows that it left came to be occupied by ponds as Chesapeake and Delaware bays-by a slight depression of the and lakes. In Maine lakes of both classes are numerous; the largest coastal plain belt, that they serve the purposes of navigation. But is Moosehead Lake, about 35 m. long and of a very irregular shore the Hudson is strikingly exceptional in this respect; it possesses a line. deep and navigable tide-water channel all through its gorge in the The features of a coast can be appreciated only when it is perceived highlands, a feature which has usually been explained as the result that they result from the descent of the land surface beneath the of depression of the land, but may also be explained by glacial sea and from the work of the sea upon the shore line erosion without change of land-level; a feature which, in connexion thus determined; and it is for this reason that throughwith the Mohawk Valley, has been absolutely determinative of the out this article the coastal features are described in connexion with metropolitan rank reached by New York City at the Hudson mouth. the districts of which they are the border. The maturely dissected The community of characteristics that is suggested by the associa- and recently glaciated uplands of New England are now somewhat tion of six north-eastern states under the name "New England" depressed with respect to sea-level, so that the sea enters the valleys, is in large measure warranted by the inclusion of forming bays and estuaries, while the interfluve uplands and hills The Northall these states within the broadened crystalline belt stand forth in headlands and islands. Narragansett Bay, with the eastern Apof the north-eastern Appalachians, which is here associated headlands and islands on the south coast, is one of the palachians. 150 m. wide. The uplands which prevail through the best examples. Where drift deposits border the sea, the shore line centre of this area at altitudes of about 1000 ft. rise to 1500 or has been cut back or built forward in beaches of submature expres2000 ft. in the north-west, before descent is made to the lowlands sion, often enclosing extensive tidal marshes; but the great part of of the stratified belt (St Lawrence-Champlain-Hudson valleys, the shore line is rocky, and there the change from initial pattern described later on as part of the Great Appalachian valley), and at due to submergence is as yet small. Hence the coast as a whole is the same time the rising uplands are diversified with monadnocks irregular, with numerous embayments, peninsulas and islands; of increasing number and height and by mature valleys cut to and in Maine this irregularity reaches a disadvantageous climax. greater and greater depths; thus the interior of New England is As in the north-east, so in the south-west, the crystalline belt moderately mountainous. When the central uplands are followed widens and gains in height, but while New England is an indivisible south-east or south to the coast, their altitude and their relief over unit, the southern crystalline belt must be subdivided The Souththe valleys gradually decrease; and thus the surface gradually into a higher mountain belt on the north-west, 60 m. western Ap passes under the sea. The lower coastal parts, from their accessi- wide where broadest, and a lower piedmont belt on the palachians. bility and their smaller relief, are more densely populated; the higher south-east, 100 m. wide, from southern Virginia to South and more rugged interior is still largely forested and thinly settled; Carolina. This subdivision is already necessary in Maryland, where there are large tracts of unbroken forest in northern Maine, hardly the mountain belt is represented by the Blue Ridge, which is rather 150 m. from the coast. In spite of these contrasts, no physio- a narrow upland belt than a ridge proper where the Potomac cuts graphic line can be drawn between the higher and more rugged across it; while the piedmont belt, relieved by occasional monadnocks interior and the lower coastal border; one merges into the other. stretches from the eastern base of the Blue Ridge to the coastal New England is a unit, though a diversified unit. plain, into which it merges. Farther south, the mountain belt widens and attains its greatest development, a true highland district in North Carolina, where it includes several strong mountain groups. Here Mt Mitchell rises to 6711 ft., the highest of the Appalachians, and about thirty other summits exceed 6000 ft., while the valleys are usually at altitudes of about 2000 ft. Although the relief is strong, the mountain forms are rounded rather than rugged; few of the summits deserve or receive the name of peaks; some are called domes, from their broadly rounded tops, others are known as balds, because the widespread forest cover is replaced over their The height and massiveness of the mountains decrease to the south-west, where the piedmont belt sweeps westward around them in western Georgia and eastern Alabama. Some of the residual mountains hereabouts are reduced to a mere skeleton or framework by the retrogressive penetration of widening valleys between wasting spurs; the very type of vanishing forms. Certain districts within The Appalachian trends (N.E.-S.W.) that are so prominent in the stratified belt of the middle Appalachians, and are fairly well marked in the crystalline belt of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, are prevailingly absent in New England. They may be seen on the western border, in the Hoosac range along the boundary of Massachusetts and New York; in the linear series of the Green Mountain summits (Mt Mansfield, 4364 ft., Killington Peak, 4241 ft.) and their (west) piedmont ridges farther north in Vermont; and in the ridges of northern Maine: these are all in sympathy with Appalachian structure: so also are certain open valleys, as the Berkshire (lime-heads by a grassy cap. stone) Valley in western Massachusetts and the corresponding Rutland (limestone and marble) Valley in western Vermont; and more particularly the long Connecticut Valley from northern New Hampshire across Massachusetts to the sea at the southern border of Connecticut, the populous southern third of which is broadly croded along a belt of red Triassic sandstones with trap ridges, Coast. |