Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/569

NEW YORK. States. It lies between latitudes 40° 30′ and 45° 1′ north, longitudes 71° 51′ and 79° 46′ west, and is bounded on the northwest by Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River, which separate it from the Canadian Province of Ontario; on the north by the Province of Quebec; and on the east by the States of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, a part of the Vermont boundary being formed by Lake Champlain. On the south the Atlantic Ocean and its arms, Long Island Sound, New York Bay, and Staten Island Sound, surround Long Island and Staten Island, which belong to the State, while the mainland portion is bounded by a part of these waters and by the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. On the west the boundary is completed by the latter State, together with Lake Erie and the Niagara River. New York has roughly the shape of a triangle, with the base on the Great Lakes and the apex extending down to the ocean. Its extreme length from north to south is 312 miles, and from east to west 326 miles. It ranks twenty-sixth in size among the States, its area being 49,170 square miles, of which 47,620 square miles are land surface.

The topographical features of New York are varied and complex, but a certain number of more or less well-marked physical divisions may be recognized. The great Appalachian belt first comes out upon the coast in this State. The Piedmont plain, which has such a distinctive development farther south, is here scarcely represented; and the coastal plain is represented only by Long Island, which is low and sandy, with an average elevation of about 70 feet and a maximum of 380 feet. The first division of the mainland, covering the southeastern corner of the State, consists of the Highlands, an extension of the Highlands of New Jersey. It is a rugged region rising in some of its peaks to a height of about 1500 feet, and is pierced by the Hudson in a magnificent gorge. It falls into gentle undulations toward Long Island Sound and New York Bay. Northwest and north of the Highlands follows an extension of the Kittatinny Valley of New Jersey. This is low compared with the neighboring elevations, but east of the Hudson the land rises into the Taconic Range, 2800 feet high, which runs along the eastern boundary into Massachusetts and Vermont, where its extension forms the Green Mountains. West of this Taconic region rises the extension of the Pennsylvanian part of the Appalachian system in the form of a vast plateau covering more than one-third of the State, and reaching from the Hudson to within two or three miles of Lake Erie. It is deeply eroded by river valleys lying in places over 1000 feet below the higher portions. Its eastern part rises in many peaks over 3000 feet in the wild and much dissected mountain region known as the Catskills, whose highest peak, Slide Mountain, has an altitude of 4205 feet. South of the Catskills are the Shawangunk Mountains. The average elevation of the western part of the great plateau is about 1200 feet, with some points reaching 2000 feet. Throughout its length on the north, east, and southeast, it is bounded by a limestone escarpment in some places very high and abrupt, and known in the east as the Helderberg Mountain. North of this escarpment is a low-lying region, forming in the west the lake shore plain and in the east the Mohawk Valley. The latter is bounded on the north by

an irregular and hilly country, which merges imperceptibly into the last great topographical region, the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks with their outlying hills cover the entire northern part of the State. Their central portion is heavily forested, and is a famous summer resort. Several of their peaks are over 4000 feet high, and Mount Marcy, the highest point in the State, has an altitude of 5344 feet. The rivers of the State flow in all directions, and supply five main systems—the Saint Lawrence, Hudson, Mississippi, Susquehanna, and Delaware. The Saint Lawrence drainage basin is the largest in the State, but includes mostly small streams flowing into Lakes Erie and Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River, and Lake Champlain. The largest of these streams are the Genesee, the Oswego, and the Black rivers, all emptying into Lake Ontario. The second drainage basin is that of the Hudson—the only large river flowing entirely within the State. It explains in large part the commercial supremacy of New York, since through its western branch-valley of the Mohawk, through which it has been practicable to construct a canal, it opens a continuous waterway into the heart of the Continent. Even before the Erie Canal was constructed the Hudson and Mohawk valleys constituted an important trade route between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes. The Delaware and Susquehanna rivers both rise in this State, draining its south-central portion. The latter is a large river before it crosses the boundary, but is not navigable. The Mississippi system is represented only by the Allegheny River in the extreme western part of the State. Many of the rivers flow through picturesque gorges, and are broken by falls and rapids, the most noted of which, besides Niagara, are those of the Genesee at Rochester.

New York is dotted with numerous lakes celebrated for beauty. Some of them are of considerable size, and nearly all are of elongated type, formed by the damming of river valleys by glacial materials. This type appears most conspicuously in the group known as the Finger Lakes in the western part of the State. They lie nearly parallel in a north and south direction. The largest are Lakes Seneca and Cayuga, each nearly 40 miles long and from 2 to 3 miles wide. Lake Chautauqua in the extreme west and the picturesque Lake George in the extreme east are of similar formation, as is also Oneida Lake in the central portion, though the last has a width of over 5 miles, with a length of 20 miles. The Adirondack region abounds in mountain lakes of romantic beauty.

The climate of the State is of the continental rather than the insular type, though the extreme coastal regions of Long Island are somewhat tempered by the ocean. The range of temperature is nowhere as great as in the States of the Northwestern plains. The average maximum is about 100° and the minimum zero, or a few degrees below, but these figures vary much with the topography, the winters in the Adirondacks being very cold. The mean temperature for January is 30° on the coast, 26° in the northwest, and 15° in the Adirondacks. The corresponding figures for July are 72°, 70°, and 64°. The rainfall is abundant throughout the State. In the Adirondacks it is nearly 60 inches, and at New York City, 42 inches. In the rest of the State