The Apalachian chain in Pennsylvania spreads to its widest limits, and covers with its various ranges more than one half of the state. The greatest width of the chain equals two hundred miles. It consists of parallel ridges sometimes little distant from each other, and at other times with valleys twenty or thirty miles broad lying between them. The range nearest the coast is called the South Mountain, and is a continuation of the Blue Ridge of Virginia. This, however, is hardly a distinct ridge, but only an irregular series of rocky, broken eminences, sometimes disappearing altogether, and at others spreading out several miles in breadth. These eminences lie one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles from the sea, and their height does not exceed one thousand two hundred feet above the surrounding country. Beyond these are the Kittatinny or Blue Mountains, which extend from Maryland to New Jersey across the Susquehanna and Delaware. Farther westward are the ridges bearing the names of the Sideling Hills, Ragged Mountains, Great Warrior Mountain, East Will’s Mountain, till we come to the Alleghany Ridge, the highest range, and from which this whole chain has in common language received the name of the Alleghany Mountains. The highest summits are between three and four thousand feet above the level of the sea. West of the Alleghany are the Laurel and Chesnut Ridges. These mountains are in general covered with thick forests. The Laurel Mountains are overgrown on their eastern front with the tree from which they are named. The wide valleys between the great ridges are filled with a multitude of hills, confusedly scattered up and down. The tops of the ridges sometimes exhibit long ranges of table land, two or three miles broad; some of them are steep on one side, and extend with a long slope on the other. These mountains are traversed by the great streams of the Susquehanna chain, and the head-waters of the Ohio.