To the east of this great dividing line extends the Appalachian coal subject from Alabama by E. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, together with West Virginia and the W. half of Pennsylvania; while to the west of it are three other palæozoic coal fields, that of Michigan, that of Illinois, including elements of Indiana and western Kentucky, and that west of the Mississippi, extending from Iowa, by Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas, into Texas. The cretaceous strata are in lots of elements hid, but are acknowledged alongside the N. portion of Long Island, and cross across New Jersey and N. Delaware to the head of Chesapeake bay. The great lakes mitigate to some extent the temperature of the nation surrounding them, and different local features, such because the elevated plains and lofty ranges of the Rocky mountain system, affect the climate of specific parts of the nation. The cholera has typically been more fatal within the valley of the Mississippi than in another part of the nation.-The soil presents virtually each selection, from the dry sterile plains in the region of the great Salt lake to the wealthy alluviums of the Mississippi valley.
The former as far S. as the Roanoke river is sandy and never naturally fertile, although capable of being made extremely productive; from the Roanoke to the Mississippi it is mostly swampy, with sandy tracts right here and there, and a considerable proportion of wealthy alluvial soil. The crystalline rocks which sure the great palæozoic basin of the United States to the east and the north are rich in ores of iron, and include additionally gold, copper, lead, nickel, and chrome. It could actually most conveniently be described by following the seven great divisions indicated by the river techniques of the nation, viz.: the St. Lawrence basin, the Atlantic slope, the Mississippi valley, the Texas slope, the Pacific slope, the inland basin of Utah, generally known as the good Basin, and the basin of the Red river of the North. The bottom of the following great palæozoic division, the Silurian correct, is the Oneida, which rests unconformably upon the previous, and, being a robust and big sandstone or conglomerate, provides rise to a conspicuous ridge alongside the eastern border of the basin. Being a Full and Accurate Description of the Kingdom of Abyssinia, Vulgarly, Though Erroneously Called the Empire of Prester John. The average annual precipitation of rain and melted snow on the Atlantic coast and on the gulf as far W. because the Sabine river varies from 36 to 60 inches, being typically from forty to 50 inches; within the larger a part of Texas and in the Mississippi valley it is from 24 to 50 inches, diminishing toward the north and west.
Transitions from heat to cold and from chilly to heat, to the extent of 30° in a couple of hours, are common at all seasons, and the alternations from rain to drought are nearly as exceptional. Thence they are uncovered at a number of factors in E. Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, until in the W. part of this state they attraction in a broad belt extending by way of central Alabama and curving northward by N. Mississippi and E. Tennessee. S. of Virginia; the W. base in Virginia and Tennessee is from 1,000 to 2,000 ft. Co H, 4th Virginia Cavalry. It’s once more continued from the Hudson throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania into Virginia, and is present in smaller areas in S. E. Virginia and in North Carolina. On this disturbed region happen the anthracite and semi-bituminous coal basins of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and the dislocations simply alluded to are in repeated situations so great as to carry up the bottom of the palæozoic collection on the N. W. facet of the detached areas of coal. As the combined outcome of these disturbances and the subsequent erosion of the floor, the entire area has been converted into a mountainous belt of parallel ridges, extending along the N. W. side of the great Appalachian valley from the Catskill mountains of latest York throughout all its length, and constituting the Alleghany mountain belt, of which the Kittatinny may be considered as the japanese limit.
It types the Shawangunk mountains of S. E. New York and the Kittatinny mountain of Pennsylvania, stretching thence southward and bounding the great Appalachian valley on its N. and W. facet, while the crystalline rocks of the South mountain and the Blue Ridge enclose it on the south and east. The cretaceous and tertiary strata, after stretching southward by way of Texas, reach up the Mississippi valley as far because the mouth of the Ohio, eastward alongside the gulf of Mexico, and thence northward to the coast of Massachusetts, in a belt of step by step diminishing breadth, together with Long Island and part of Martha’s Vineyard. In the region bounded W. by the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains and E. by an irregular line commencing at the 95th meridian in N. Minnesota, and intersecting the 101st meridian in N. W. Texas, it does not exceed 20 inches, and is mostly a lot less than that.