NORTH AMERICA. In North America the Cor dillera develops its greatest breadth and complex ity in the main body of the United States. Here it includes a broad plateau 1000 miles in width, with an elevation of from 5000 to 10,000 feet, on which stand a succession of mountain ranges trending nearly north and south, the highest of which rise to altitudes of from 14,000 to 15,000 feet. The highest of these ranges are in Colorado and California. In the former State are the Front Range, with Long's Peak, 14,271 feet; Gray's Peak. 14.341 feet; Pike's Peak, 14, 108 feet; the Sangre de Cristo Range, with Blan ca Peak, 14,300 feet: the Park Range. with Mount Lincoln, 14,297 feet; the Sawatch Range, with the Mountain of the Holy Cross. 14,006 feet, Elbert Peak, 14,421 feet, and Mount Harvard, 14,375 feet: and the San Juan Mountains, with Uncompahgre Peak, 14,289 feet, and Mount Wil son, 14,280 feet.
The principal range of California is the Sierra Nevada, with Mount Corcoran, 14,093 feet; Fish erman l'eak, 14,448 feet: Mount Whitney, 14, 898 feet; and Mount Shasta, an extinct volcano, 14,380 feet. The Cascade Range of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia is a contin uation of the Sierra Nevada in direction, though not in structure, as it is in the main the product of volcanic action, and contains many extinct volcanoes, the highest of these being Mount Rainier. 14.526 feet. Northward in British C'o lumbia the system is not as high nor as broad. but following the coast around through Alaska. it rises in semi-detached groups and ranges, some of which are of great height, culminating in Mount McKinley, north of the head of Conk Inlet, 20,464 feet in height, the highest summit in North America. Another high peak. on the boundary between Alaska and British America, is Mount St. Elias, 18,100 feet above the sea. This was long supposed to be the highest point in North America.
The area of Mexico, with the exception of the State of Yucatan, lies almost entirely within the Cordilleran mountain system. The plateau ex tends southward into it from the United States, with an elevation ranging from 4000 to 7000 feet. Upon this undulating taltle-land. which is
known as the plateau of Anahuac, are many mountain ranges and many active or dormant volcanoes, the latter being the highest peaks of the country. Among them are Popocatepetl, 17.520 feet; Orizaba, 18,250 feet; Iztaccilmatl, 16.960 feet; Nevada de Toluca, 14.950 feet; and Malinche, 13,460 feet. In the countries of Cen tral America the Cordillera is represented by detached ranges of hills, with numerous voleanh. peaks, some of which are active, others extinct.
The depression lying east of the Cordillera stretches in the north to the Atlantic or to Hud son Bay, and in southern Canada and the United States to the Appalachian or Eastern Moun tains, with a breadth of 25° of longitude. Over this great area the surface presents no serious variations of level. The only elevations of im portance are the Ozark Hills in Arkansas, South ern Missouri, and Indian Territory, with a maxi mum altitude little over 3000 feet.
The Appalachian Mountains, in a broad sense, extend from the Gasp Peninsula in southeastern Canada. southwestward through the eastern United States to northern Alabama and Georgia, in a fairly continuous system. They form a nar row plateau, 70 to 200 miles in width and 1500 to 3000 feet in height, which is bordered on the east by the Blue Ridge and on the west by the Aller,dtany Mountains. In the northern section the line of elevations includes the Green and White Monntains of Vermont and New Hamp shire and the Adirondacks of New York, all of which differ more or less in their geological strueture from the central and southern portions of the system. The highest summits are Mount Washington in New Hampshire. 6294 feet, and Mount Mitchell in North Carolina. 6707 feet. East of this mountain system the land slopes gently to the Atlantic coast, and is known as the Piedmont Region and the Atlantic Plain. See ROCKY :MOUNTAINS: APPALACIIIANS, etc.