The Appalachians abound in beautiful scenery, but, except about a few of the very highest domes and ridges, have little of the stern ruggedness which is typical of truly great mountains. Their countless valleys are now mostly cleared of their primitive forests and under cultivation. To a large extent also even the steep hillsides are tilled. The larger trees which formerly grew on the mountains have nearly all been felled, and where the land is not suitable for cultivation their place is taken by a dense second growth. Under the mild, humid climate that prevails, more especially from the vicinity of the Susquehanna River southward, the rocks are deeply disintegrated and decayed, and even steep mountainsides are mantled with soil and rock _debris_. It is the excess of disintegration and decay over erosion which gives to the mountains their usually flowing outlines and pleasingly picturesque rather than rugged scenery. The valleys still retain much of the material washed from the uplands, and are deeply floored with rich soil. The characteristic colours of this decayed rock-waste are many shades of red and yellow, which harmonize in a most artistic manner with the prevailing green of the plant-covered uplands and abandoned fields. These red and yellow soils, particularly about the bases of the higher summits of the southern Appalachians, afford abundant crops of cotton, corn (maize), and tobacco. _The Mountains of New England, New York, New Brunswick, etc._--The picturesque Berkshire Hills, in the western portion of Massachusetts, have rounded and flowing outlines and a generally subdued relief. The more prominent of these greatly eroded remnants of what was once a mountain range rise but 2,000 to 3,500 feet above the sea. No satisfactory boundary between these hills of gneiss, schist, and allied metamorphic rocks, and the others of the same general character in the neighbouring portions of New York and New Jersey, has been determined. So far as the relief is concerned, and so far also as the complex geological history has been deciphered, there seems no good reason for separating the Berkshire Hills from the Appalachian Mountains. It is convenient, however, to consider the Appalachians as terminating at the Hudson. The Berkshire Hills when traced northward merge with a region of similar topography which unites them with the Green Mountains of Vermont, the highest summit of which, Mount Mansfield, attains an elevation of 4,364 feet above the sea. To the east of the Green Mountains are situated the still higher and more rugged White Mountains of New Hampshire, which culminate in Mount Washington. This widely known and greatly admired peak has an elevation of 6,293 feet, and, next to Mount Mitchell in the southern Appalachians, is the highest mountain on the eastern side of the continent to the south of the newly discovered group of peaks near Hudson Strait. Associated with Mount Washington are