The region continued to rise during a period long enough to produce the essential features of the mountain ranges of to-day; then it stood still in relation to the sea or perhaps subsided somewhat, and the French Broad and probably other rivers made record of the pause in plains like that about Asheville. Again the land rose slowly; again it paused, and rivers, working always from their mouths backward, carved a base-level in the limestones of the great valley; but before that level could extend up through the gorges in the Unakas, the continent was raised to its present elevation, the streams responded to the increased fall given them and the rivers in the valley began to cut their still incomplete cañons. Are we not led step by step from these latest sharply cut channels up stream through the chapters of erosion to the still surviving domes of an early old age? Let us sum up the history we have traced. There is reason to believe that: 1st. The consequent topography of the earliest Appalachian uplift was entirely removed during a prolonged period of erosion and was replaced by a relief of differential degradation. 2d. The balds of the Unakas represent the heights of that first-known approach to a base-level. 3d. The topography of the region has been revived by a general, though not necessarily uniform, uplift of 3,000 feet or more, divided by two intervals of rest; during the first of these the Asheville base-level was formed; during the second, the valley alone was reduced. 4th. The latest movement of the uplift has been, geologically speaking, quite recent, and the revived streams have accomplished but a small part of their new task. These conclusions are reached on the observation of a single class of facts in one district; they must be compared with the record of continental oscillation on the sea coasts, in the deposits of the coastal plain, and in the topography of other districts. The history of the Appalachians is written in every river system and on every mountain range, but in characters determined for each locality by the local conditions. Only when the knowledge, to which every tourist may contribute, is extended over the entire region shall we know conclusively the whole story. A TRIP TO PANAMA AND DARIEN. BY RICHARD U. GOODE. The Government of the United States of Colombia in its act of Concession to the Panama Canal Company provided that it should give to the latter _"gratuitement et avec toutes les mines qu'ils pourront contenir"_ 500,000 hectares of land.