between the Atlantic ocean, the Mississippi river, and the lakes, are a long and broad range of mountains, made up of a great number of ridges, extending north-easterly and south-westernly, nearly parallel to the sea coast, about 900 miles in length, and from 60 to 150 miles in breadth. 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 Kittatinny mountains. All these different and immense ridges, except the Alleghany, are broken through by rivers, which appear to have forced Alleghany, their way through solid rocks. This principal ridge is Allegiance, 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, is the Alleghany mountains. 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 Appalackicola; but the most common name is the Alleghany mountains, so called, probably, from the principal ridge of the range.

They pass through the states eastward of the Mississippi like a spine or back-bone, and give rise to nearly all the rivers in that region. They approach the sea at New York, but take a direction inland from that point, and in Georgia are above 200 miles from the sea. They are generally covered with natural wood, and capable of cultivation, with some exceptions. The soil in the valleys between the ridges is found to be superior to that between the mountains and the sea, and is indeed among the best in the United States. Towards the northern extremity of the Alleghanies, the primitive rocks cover a great breadth of country; but southward of New York they are chiefly confined to the eastern slope of the mountains. A zone of transition rocks from 20 to 40 miles in breadth, extends nearly the whole length of the chain; and beyond this to the westward the country is chiefly limestone. They are not confusedly scattered, but run along in ridges generally of a uniform height, estimated on an average at 3000 feet. The ground rises to them from the sea so gradually that their height does not strike the eye much. They contain a considerable variety of minerals, and on the western side great beds of coal.

ALLEGHANY River, in Pennsylvania, rises on the western side of the Alleghany mountains, and after running about 200 miles in a south-west direction, meets the Monongahela at Pittsburg, and both united form the Ohio. The lands on each side of this river, for 150 miles above Pittsburg, consist of white oak and chestnut ridges, and in many places of poor pitch pines, interspersed with tracts of good land, and low meadows. This river, and the Ohio likewise, from its head waters until it enters the Mississippi, are known and called by the name of Alleghany River, by the Seneca and other tribes of the Six Nations, who once inhabited it.