[Sidenote: _The waterways of North America._] The sources of the Mississippi are close to the western end of Lake Superior, and the eastern half of North America is therefore nearly an island, created by the Mississippi, the great lakes, the St. Lawrence, and the sea. An inner circle is formed by the Mississippi, the Ohio, Lakes Erie, Ontario, and the St. Lawrence, the head waters of the Ohio river being within easy distance of Lake Erie. The course of the Ohio {49} is from north-east to north-west. It flows, very roughly, parallel to the Alleghany mountains, and drains their western sides. The Alleghanies in their turn are parallel to the Atlantic, and between them and the sea is a coast belt from north to south. Here was the scene of the English settlements. Here, cut off by mountain ranges from the Mississippi valley and from the inland plains, the Virginians and the New Englanders made their home. 'The New England man,' writes Parkman, 'had very little forest experience. His geographical position cut him off completely from the great wilderness of the interior. The sea was his field of action.'[5] [Footnote 5: _The Old Régime in Canada_, chap. xxi, p. 399 (14th ed., 1885).] [Sidenote: _The Hudson river and Lake Champlain._] But there is one direct route, with nearly continuous waterways, from the Atlantic seaboard to the St. Lawrence. It runs due north up the Hudson river, is continued by Lakes George and Champlain between the Adirondack mountains on the west, and on the east the Green mountains of Vermont; and from the northern end of Lake Champlain it follows the outlet of that lake, the Richelieu river, for seventy to eighty miles into the St. Lawrence. The head waters of the Hudson are hard by Lake George, but at the present day navigation ceases at Troy, 151 miles from the sea, where is the confluence of the Mohawk river, and from whence the Champlain canal runs direct to Lake Champlain. The distance from Troy to Lake George is in straight line about fifty miles. This route was all-important for attack and defence in the wars between England and France, and it was well for Great Britain that, at a comparatively early stage in the colonization of America, she took over the Dutch settlements in the valley of the Hudson, gaining control of that river and linking New England to the southern colonies. [Sidenote: _The St. Lawrence._]