A Book of the United States. Various

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      Valley of the Mohawk.

      The only large valley in North Carolina lies between the Blue Ridge, and a parallel range called the Iron, Bald, and Smoky Mountains. It runs north-east and south-west, is one hundred and eighty miles in length, and from ten to forty in width.

      The valleys of the small rivers of Tennessee are singularly beautiful and fertile, surpassing all others of the same description in the Western States. The valleys of the Cumberland and Tennessee differ little from the alluvions of the other great rivers of the west.

      The Valley of the Connecticut is one of the most celebrated valleys of the United States for its fertility and beauty. It is a large tract of land extending from Long Island sound to Hereford Mountains in Canada, five miles beyond the forty-fifth degree of latitude. In the largest sense, it is from five to forty-five miles in width, and its surface is composed of a succession of hills, valleys and plains. The interval lands begin about twelve or fourteen miles from the mouth of the river. These are formed by a long and continued alluvion. The tributary streams of the Connecticut run every where through a soft and rich soil, considerable quantities of which, particularly the lighter and finer particles, are from time to time washed into their channels, by occasional currents springing from rains and melted snows. Wherever the stream moves with an uniform current these particles are carried along with it; but where the current is materially checked, they are in greater or less quantities deposited. In this manner a shoal is formed at first, which afterwards rises into dry land; this is almost invariably of good quality, but those parts which are lowest are commonly the best, as being the most frequently overflowed, and therefore most enriched by successive deposits of slime. Of these parts, that division which is farthest down the river is the most productive, consisting of finer particles, and being more plentifully covered with this manure. In the spring these grounds are almost annually overflowed. In the months of March and April, the snows, which in the northern parts of New England are usually deep, and the rains, which at this time of the year, are generally copious, raise the river from fifteen to twenty feet, and extend the breadth of its waters in some places a mile and a half or two miles. Almost all the slime conveyed down the current at this season, is deposited on these lands, for here, principally, the water becomes quiescent, and permits the earthy particles to subside; this deposit is a rich manure; the lands dressed with it are preserved in their full strength, and being regularly enriched by the hand of nature, cannot but be highly valuable. Nor are these grounds less distinguished by their beauty. The form of most of them is elegant; a river passing through them becomes, almost of course, winding; the earth of which they are composed is of a uniform texture, the impressions made by the stream upon the border are also nearly uniform; hence this border is almost universally a handsome arch, with a neat margin, frequently ornamented with a fine fringe of shrubs and trees.

      Nor is the surface of these grounds less pleasing; their terraced forms and undulations are eminently handsome, and their universal fertility makes a cheerful impression on every eye. A great part of them is formed into meadows which are here more profitable, and every where more beautiful than lands devoted to any other culture; here they are extended from five to five hundred acres, and are every where covered with a verdure peculiarly rich and vivid. The vast fields also which are not in meadow, exhibit all the productions of the climate, interspersed in parallelograms, divided only by mathematical lines, and mingled in a charming confusion. In many places, large and thrifty orchards, and every where forest trees standing singly, of great height and graceful figures, diversify the landscape. Through its whole extent this valley is almost a continual succession of delightful scenery. The Connecticut is one of the most beautiful rivers in the world; the purity, salubrity and sweetness of its waters, the frequency and elegance of its meadows, its absolute freedom from aquatic vegetables, the enchanting elegance and grandeur of its banks, sometimes consisting of a smooth and winding beach, here covered with rich verdure, there fringed with bushes, now crowned with lofty trees, and now formed by the intruding hill, the rude bluff, and the shaggy mountain; these are objects which no description can equal.

      GENERAL REMARKS ON VALLEYS.

      Valleys are formed by the separation of chains of mountains or of hills. Those which are formed between high mountains, are commonly narrow and long, as if they had originally been only fissures dividing their respective chains, or for the passage of extensive torrents. The angles of their direction sometimes exhibit singular symmetry. In the Pyrenees there are said to be valleys whose salient and re-entrant angles so perfectly correspond, that if the force which separated them were to act in a contrary direction, and bring their sides together again, they would unite so exactly that even the fissure would not be perceived. There are some highly situated valleys containing rivers and lakes which have no outlets or streams. Most high valleys have their surface upon a level with the summits of the secondary mountains in the neighborhood. The lower valleys widen as they recede from the secondary mountains from which they originate, and gradually lose themselves in the plains. Their opposite angles correspond regularly, but are very obtuse.

      The sort of narrow passage by which we enter into these high valleys is called a pass or defile. Between Norway and Sweden is one of these passes, formed by several masses of rock cut by nature into the shape of long parallelograms, and which have between them a passage shut in by perpendicular walls. This pass is near Skiærdal; another of the same kind is at Portfeld, or the Mountain of the Gate. These openings exactly resemble those by which the Hudson passes through successive chains of mountains, which seem desirous of checking its course. The Cordilleras of the Andes present the most stupendous passes of this kind that are known; they are from four to five thousand feet deep.

      The valleys of the Hudson and Connecticut are equalled by few in the old world for natural beauty and romantic scenery. Of the valleys of Europe, that of the Rhine is most celebrated; and is only more interesting than the Hudson on account of its old historical associations, its populous cities, and the picturesque ruins and massive monuments of architecture which frown upon its banks.

CHAPTER III.—PRAIRIES AND PLAINS.

       Table of Contents

      ONE of the most remarkable features of the western country consists in its extensive prairies or savannahs, which prevail in all the vast region between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, and also to the west of the Rocky Mountains. When seen from the summits of the Mexican and the Rocky Mountains, they seem absolutely boundless to the view. They are not to be considered merely as dead flat, but undulating into gentle swelling lawns, and expanding into spacious valleys, in the centre of which is always found a little timber, growing on the banks of the brooks and rivulets of the finest water. Pike, who viewed them from the summit of the Blue Mountain, under the source of the Arkansaw, says, ‘the unbounded prairie was overhung with clouds, which seemed like the ocean in a storm, wave piled on wave, and foaming; while the sky over our heads was perfectly clear, and the prospect was truly sublime.’ In these vast prairies the soil is dry, sandy, with gravel; but the moment we approach a stream, the land becomes more humid, with small timber. It is probable that these steppes or prairies were never well wooded, as, from the earliest ages, the aridity of the soil, having so few water-courses running through it, and these being principally dry in summer, no sufficient nourishment has been afforded to the growth of timber. In all timbered land, the annual discharge of the leaves, with the continual decay of old trees and branches, creates a manure and moisture, which are preserved from the heat—the sun СКАЧАТЬ