Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/519

AMERICA. the deep bay of Panama. The west coast of North America south of the parallel of 48° N. is broken deeply only by the Gulf of California and San Francisco Bay, but near the northwest corner of the United States a fiord coast commences with Puget Sound, and extends thence along British Columbia and Alaska to the Aleutian Islands. The Bering Sea coast of Alaska is low, and broken by many indentations, and similar conditions prevail on the Arctic coast.

. The prominent relief feature of both continents consists in a great system of elevation, stretching along or near the western coast, from Cape Horn in South America to the extreme end of the Alaska peninsula in North America. This is known in South America as the Andean Cordillera, and in North America as the Cordillera. It differs greatly in its different parts, in breadth, height, complexity, and character. In North America the Cordillera are succeeded on the east by a broad valley; east of this valley, and separating it in the south from the Atlantic, is the shorter, smaller, and lower Appalachian system. In South America the succession is somewhat similar. East of the Andes is a broad slope or depression, which in Argentina continues to the Atlantic; but in eastern Brazil and the Guianas the continuity of the eastward slope is broken by numerous short and comparatively low ranges, corresponding roughly with the Appalachians of the northern continent.

. In North America the Cordillera develops its greatest breadth and complexity in the main body of the United States. Here it includes a broad plateau 1000 miles in width, with an elevation of from 5000 to 10,000 feet, on which stand a succession of mountain ranges trending nearly north and south, the highest of which rise to altitudes of from 14,000 to 15,000 feet. The highest of these ranges are in Colorado and California. In the former State are the Front Range, with Long's Peak, 14,271 feet; Gray's Peak, 14,341 feet; Pike's Peak, 14,108 feet; the Sangre de Cristo Range, with Blanca Peak, 14,300 feet; the Park Range, with Mount Lincoln, 14,297 feet; the Sawatch Range, with the Mountain of the Holy Cross, 14,006 feet, Elbert Peak, 14,421 feet, and Mount Harvard, 14,375 feet; and the San Juan Mountains, with Uncompahgre Peak, 14,289 feet, and Mount Wilson, 14,280 feet.

The principal range of California is the Sierra Nevada, with Mount Corcoran, 14,093 feet; Fisherman Peak, 14,448 feet; Mount Whitney, 14,898 feet; and Mount Shasta, an extinct volcano, 14,380 feet. The Cascade Range of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia is a continuation of the Sierra Nevada in direction, though not in structure, as it is in the main the product of volcanic action, and contains many extinct volcanoes, the highest of these being Mount Rainier, 14,526 feet. Northward in British Columbia the system is not as high nor as broad, but following the coast around through Alaska, it rises in semi-detached groups and ranges, some of which are of great height, culminating in Mount McKinley, north of the head of Cook Inlet, 20,404 feet in height, the highest summit in North America. Another high peak, on the boundary between Alaska and British America, is Mount St. Elias, 18,100 feet above the sea. This was long supposed to be the highest point in North America.

The area of Mexico, with the exception of the

State of Yucatan, lies almost entirely within the Cordilleran mountain system. The plateau extends southward into it from the United States, with an elevation ranging from 4000 to 7000 feet. Upon this undulating table-land, which is known as the plateau of Anahuac, are many mountain ranges and many active or dormant volcanoes, the latter being the highest peaks of the country. Among them are Popocatepetl, 17,520 feet; Orizaba, 18,250 feet; Iztaccihuatl, 10,900 feet; Nevada de Toluca, 14,950 feet; and Malinche, 13,460 feet. In the countries of Central America the Cordillera is represented by detached ranges of hills, with numerous volcanic peaks, some of which are active, others extinct.

The depression lying east of the Cordillera stretches in the north to the Atlantic or to Hudson Bay, and in southern Canada and the United States to the Appalachian or Eastern Mountains, with a breadth of 25° of longitude. Over this great area the surface presents no serious variations of level. The only elevations of importance are the Ozark Hills in Arkansas, Southern Missouri, and Indian Territory, with a maximum altitude little over 3000 feet.

The Appalachian Mountains, in a broad sense, extend from the Gaspé Peninsula in southeastern Canada, southwestward through the eastern United States to northern Alabama and Georgia, in a fairly continuous system. They form a narrow plateau, 70 to 200 miles in width and 1500 to 3000 feet in height, which is bordered on the east by the Blue Ridge and on the west by the Alleghany Mountains. In the northern section the line of elevations includes the Green and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire and the Adirondacks of New York, all of which differ more or less in their geological structure from the central and southern portions of the system. The highest summits are Mount Washington in New Hampshire, 6294 feet, and Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, 6707 feet. East of this mountain system the land slopes gently to the Atlantic coast, and is known as the Piedmont Region and the Atlantic Plain. See ;, etc.

. The Cordillera of the Andes follows the western coast of South America in a continuous mountain system from Cape Horn to the Isthmus of Panama, leaving a narrow strip of lowland between its base and the coast nowhere much more than a hundred miles in breadth. In the south the system is narrow and simple, consisting in great part of a single range, which has no great height. Northward it increases in altitude and becomes more complex, reaching a culminating point in the great peak of Aconcagua, in lat. 32° S., which reaches the height of 23,080 feet, the loftiest summit in South America. Still farther north the peaks are not as high, but the system broadens and becomes more complicated by the appearance of ranges in Argentina, east of the Andes proper. In lat. 18° S. the system curves to the northwest, following the coast; here it has a breadth of fully 300 miles, with two, and, in places, three main ranges, and encloses an elevated plateau, on which is situated Lake Titicaca, 12,645 feet high. Near this lake, in the Cordillera Real, are many high peaks, among them Ancohuma, 21,490 feet; Cacaca, 20,250 feet; and Illimani, 21,192 feet.

Still following the coast, the system turns north again at the Gulf of Guayaquil,