If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North
American continent from one of the strategic passageways of the
Alleghanies, say from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning
Gorge, the outstanding feature in the picture will be the
Appalachian barrier that separates the interior from the Atlantic
coast
If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North
American continent from one of the strategic passageways of the
Alleghanies, say from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning
Gorge, the outstanding feature in the picture will be the
Appalachian barrier that separates the interior from the Atlantic
coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks and the Berkshire Hills,
hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two glittering
waterways lie east and west of these heights–the Connecticut and
the Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the
two deeply worn pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path and the
Connecticut Path. By way of Westfield River, that silver
tributary which joins the Connecticut at Springfield,
Massachusetts, the Bay Path surmounted the Berkshire highlands
and united old Massachusetts to the upper Hudson Valley near Fort
Orange, now Albany.
