Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/70

 CHAPTER III

HE first great Indian thoroughfares westward offered connection from tide-water to the streams and valleys of the Mississippi basin. In part they were portage paths, the destination of each being really on a lake or river of the West. All were probably used over some portion of their extent as actual portages with the exception of the last. All marked out the paths of least resistance across the first divide as is significantly shown by the adoption of these routes by the greatest of our modern railway systems. There is no trunk railway across the Appalachian system today which is not in general alignment with one of these prehistoric thoroughfares. The route and prospective destinations of these cannot be presented better or more quickly to the eye than by means of simple charts: