THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE LAND
Taking the better known portions of North America as a basis on which to classify the leading geographical features of the continent, it is convenient, and in the main sufficiently accurate, to recognise five primary physiographic provinces. These are, in their general order, from east to west:
1. Coastal plains and plateaus, of which the country between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains furnishes the most typical examples.
2. A series of mountain ranges embracing all of the more elevated country on the east side of the continent from Georgia northward to the arctic archipelago, and in this book termed the Atlantic Mountains.
3. The great system of plains and plateaus extending from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the Arctic Ocean and bordered on the east by the Atlantic Mountains and on the west by a still greater series of mountains, which may be designated with sufficient accuracy as the Continental Basin.
4. A group of mountain chains and mountain ranges on the west side of the continent, including the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Cascades, etc., and sometimes termed the Cordilleras. Under the scheme of classification here used, this highly complex belt of rugged country extending from south-central Mexico northward to the Arctic Ocean is termed the Pacific Cordillera, or, in less technical language, the Pacific Mountains.[1]
[1]The propriety of using the names here employed for the larger physiographic provinces of North America has been discussed by several writers in the Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, vol. ii, 1899, pp. 55-69.
