Coastal Features
The coasts on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans reach 12,101 miles, the Atlantic coast (including that of the Mexican Gulf) being 9,568 miles in extent and the Pacific coast 2,533. This shows that the Atlantic coast, which is only 2,349 miles long if the windings of the shore are not followed and if the 3,551 miles of Gulf coast are deducted, is less regular than the Pacific coast. Consequently the most numerous and the largest harbors are on the Atlantic and face Europe. There are many large inlets and bays. Penobscot, Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Narragansett, New York, Delaware and Chesapeake Bays and Long Island, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds are the most important indentations on the Atlantic shore. Along the Gulf are Apalachee, Galveston, Mobile and Tampa Bays. On the Pacific are Monterey, San Diego and San Francisco Bays, Puget Sound, the Strait of Fuca and Santa Barbara and San Pedro Channels. Alaska, too, has numerous bays and sounds. The United States shores of the Great Lakes (q. v.) add 3,000 miles more to the continental coasts of the republic. Their total length, following the windings of all shores, is 22,609 miles. (Those of Alaska and the islands cannot here be given.) There are no large islands off these coasts, Long Island (q. v.) being the most considerable. Next in importance come the islands off Maine and Massachusetts and the Santa Barbara group off California. Alaska has many large islands. Cuba is but 90 miles south of Florida, and southeast of Florida lie the nearby Bahamas. Prominent projections on the Atlantic coast are Capes Cod and Hatteras and the peninsula of Florida; in the Gulf the Mississippi delta and Cape San Blas; and on the Pacific Cape Mendocino. (See titles and Coast-Survey.)
Surface and Drainage
The United States divides naturally into four physical regions, two of which are elevations and the others lowlands. The elevated regions are the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Rockies in the west, both trending north and south in general. (See Alleghany and Rocky Mountains.) There also are the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and the Black Hills of South Dakota. The lowland regions are the Atlantic slope and the Mississippi valley, the Pacific lowland being too narrow to form a main division.
The Appalachians extend from Canada into Georgia and Alabama, nearly parallel with the Atlantic, 20 to 100 miles inland, and known from north to south as the Height of Land in Maine, the White Mountains in New Hampshire, the Adirondacks and Catskills in New York, the Berkshires in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Highlands in New Jersey and the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania and the south, where they have parallel ranges, as the Blue Ridge. (See articles under titles above.) This mountainous country, with heights of 6,000 feet, is about 100 miles wide, and forms nature's barrier between the Atlantic slope and the Mississippi valley. It, however, is broken by the Connecticut, Hudson, Mohawk, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac and James Rivers. (See these titles). Mitchell's Peak and Mount Washington are its highest points.
The Rockies, about 1,000 miles west of Mississippi River, reach from Mexico into Alaska. Their width averages 300 miles, though at some points it reaches 1,000 miles, and many of their peaks in the United States top 14,000 feet. The Sierra Nevada of California, the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington and the Coast Range are parallel ridges of the Rocky Mountains. Mt. Whitney of the Sierra Nevada rises 14,887 feet and Mounts Hood and Shasta and Long's and Pike's Peaks are nearly as high. In Alaska Mt. McKinley towers 20,464 feet, the loftiest height on the continent; and St. Elias 18,024. (See the titles).
The Atlantic slope, between the Appalachians and the ocean, generally has low coasts, sloping inward to the hilly regions or Piedmont (q. v.) at the base of the mountains. Many of its rivers are navigable, the larger streams flowing more than 300 miles. Among these are the Penobscot, Kennebec, Hudson, Connecticut, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, James, Cape Fear, Neuse, Roanoke, Santee, Savannah and Altamaha. (See titles). Small lakes also abound in New England and the middle states. The streams emptying into the Gulf include the Chattahoochee, Alabama, Pearl, Mississippi, Sabine, Trinity, Brazos, Colorado of Texas, Nueces and Rio Grande. The junction of the Atlantic slope and the Piedmont is marked by a ridge called the falls' line, because the streams from the Appalachians drop at this uplift and create the water-power of New England, the middle Atlantic states and the eastern states of the south. (See articles on the rivers named.)
The vast interior plain between the Appalachians and the Rockies and Canada and the Mexican Gulf is watered by the mighty Missouri and Mississippi and their 10,000 tributaries and is one of the most fertile regions on the globe. Its hills are covered with forests and its plains and prairies produce the huge crops of grain and cotton that feed and clothe the world. The eastern part of this central region is hilly, and West Virginia and eastern Tennessee and Kentucky are covered with heavy forests. The center is prairie, merging toward the Rockies into enormous plains covered with wild
