VEGETATION AND FAUNA. The Appalachian region is covered with a dense forest growth where it has not been removed by man, forest trees covering the mountain slopes practically to their summits, except where the barren rocks furnish no soil. The chief trees in the north are the sugar maple, white birch, beech, ash, pine, and hemlock; in the south, oaks of various kinds, chestnut, hickory, poplar, tulip, ash, beech, maple, linden, red birch, cherry, with a sprink ling of a dozen other varieties. Especially at the south extensive thickets of laurel and rhodo dendron border the water-courses. Ferns, wild flowers, wild grasses, and the wild pea vine fur nish an abundant 'herbage. In the northern sec tion most of the valuable timber has been removed and vast areas desolated to secure tree bark for tanning purposes. At the South. how ever, the forests retain much of their primeval character and magnificence, some of the trees being of gigantic size. Of the larger mammalia bears, deer, wildcats, are still common, hut by no means plentiful. Wolves and panthers have practically disappeared. Small game birds and, at the South, wild turkeys are plentiful. Unfortunately, rattlesnakes and copperheads are to he found all over the mountains, yet rarely in dangerous numbers. The woods and streams abound, beyond almost any other part of the 'Temperate Zone, in fresh-water mollusks.
MricERAL REsouitcEs. Economic products of considerable importance are found in the Appa lachian region. Coal (q.v.) is far the most im portant; the entire anthracite field and part of the bituminous field of Pennsylvania and other States lie in the Alleghany Mountains and the Cumberland plateau or its northern extension.
The petroleum and oil fields of New York, western Pennsylvania, and southward, barely touch the edge of the Appalachian region. Of the metals, iron occurs as hematite, limonite, and magnetite at many localities: zinc is found in association with magnetite at the well-known localities of Franklin Furnace and Ogdensburg, N. J., and as blende, calamine, etc., associated with lead, at the Bertha Mines in Wythe County, Va. Lead has been found in small amounts at many points, but does not occur in sufficient quantity to constitute an independent industry. Copper is found native in the crystalline rocks of Virginia, and as chalcopyrite often in large masses, as at Ducktown, eastern Tennessee. Gold and silver occur in small amounts chiefly in Georgia and North Carolina; nickel and cobalt are also found sparingly. Bauxite, one of the ores of aluminum, has assumed great importance in Alabama. and manganese has been mined in large quantities in Tennessee and Virginia. Natural cement, of such high grade as to make it a rival of Portland cement, is found at many outcrops of the Upper Silurian formations in New York. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Mary land, and is burned throughout the region. Building stone of good quality is abundant, and slate of excellent grade is quarried in New Jer sey and Pennsylvania. Asbestos, mica, garnet, and emery are mined in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, and gems of many kinds are found in the Blue Ridge.