ALLEGHANY Mountains, between the Atlantic ocean, the Mississippi river, and the lakes, are a long and broad range of mountains, made up of a great num-
ber of ridges, extending north-easterly and south-westerly, nearly parallel to the sea coast, about 900 miles in length, and from 60 to 150 and 200 miles in breadth. Mr Evans observes, with respect to that part of these mountains which he travelled over, viz. in the back parts of Pennsylvania, that scarcely one acre in ten is capable of culture. This, however, is far from being the case in all parts of this range. Numerous tracts of fine arable and grazing land intervene between the ridges. The different ridges which compose this immense range of mountains, have different names in the different states, viz. the Blue Ridge, the North mountain or North ridge, or Devil's Back-Bone, Laurel ridge, Jackson's mountains, and Kittitinnymy mountains. All these different and immense ridges, except the Alleghany, are broken through by rivers, which appear to have forced their way through solid rocks. This principal ridge is more immediately called Alleghany, and is descriptively named the Back-bone of the United States. From these several ridges proceed innumerable branches, or spurs.
The general name of the whole range, taken collectively, seems not yet to have been determined. Mr Evans calls them the Endless mountains; others have called them the Appalachian mountains, from a tribe of Indians, who live on a river which proceeds from this mountain, called the Appalachicola; but the most common name is the Alleghany mountains, so called, probably, from the principal ridge of the range. These mountains are not confusedly scattered, rising here and there into high peaks, overtopping each other; but run along in uniform ridges, scarcely half a mile high. They spread as you proceed south, and some of them terminate in high perpendicular bluffs: others gradually subside in a level country, giving rise to the rivers which run southerly into the gulf of Mexico.