Mountains.— The mountains of New York form three distinct groups. (1) The Adirondacks, a series of short ranges having a north-north-east and south-south-west direction, form the centre of the elevated region of the north-east section of the State. The highest of these is Mount Marcy, 5344 feet, with several associated summits which reach the altitude of 5000 feet. (2) The Catskill Mountains, with their foothills, occupy about 500 square miles south of the Mohawk valley and west of the Hudson; the highest peaks reach an altitude of 4000 feet. The Helderberg and Shawangunk Mountains are topographically a portion of the Catskills, the first on the north, the second on the south. These all belong to the Alleghany system, and are connected with the mountains of Pennsylvania by the Delaware Mountains, which have an altitude of from 1600 to 2800 feet. (3) The Highlands of the Hudson, through which the river passes at West Point, are the northern continuation of the Blue Ridge of Pennsylvania, having an altitude of from 1200 to 1800 feet. The so-called mountains of the central and southern counties are portions of a high plateau which connects with the Helderberg and Catskill Mountains on the east. This is cut by eroded valleys in such a way as to leave many elevated points, of which the highest is East Hill in Otsego county, 2300 feet above the sea.

One of the most peculiar and impressive topographical features is formed by the cliffs of the Palisades, which border the Hudson in Rockland county, and are continuous with those of New Jersey.

Lakes and Rivers.— Two of the chain of great lakes border the State, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, connected by the Niagara river, on which is the most celebrated cataract in the world. Lake Erie gives about 75 miles of coast-line to New York, Lake Ontario over 200. The surface level of the former is 573 feet above the sea, of the latter 245 feet; and this is 606 feet deep. A portion of the eastern border of New York is formed by Lake Champlain, which lies in the trough between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. Within the State the number of lakes is very great. The largest is Lake George, famous for its beautiful scenery. Through the central portion a series of peculiar elongated lakes are found which lie with a nearly north-and-south bearing on the slope from the southern highlands to the Ontario basin, or the Mohawk valley. The largest of these are Cayuga, Seneca, Oneida, Crooked, Canandaigua, Owasco, and Otsego. These are river valleys once occupied and modified by glaciers and dammed up by moraines. The Adirondack region is famous for its system of lakes, which are favourite places of resort for tourists. Among the rivers of New York the Hudson is the largest and most beautiful. Formerly it ran several hundred feet below its present level, and was the great channel of drainage which led through the Mohawk valley from the interior. Now, by a subsidence of the continent, it is an arm of the sea, and navigable to Troy, 151 miles from its mouth. The Black River, the Mohawk, and the Genesee are all large streams which lie entirely within the State, while the Alleghany, the Susquehanna, and the Delaware rise there, but soon leave it to become the great rivers of Pennsylvania. From the varied topography and the abundant rainfall the number of streams is large, and many of them are marked by picturesque falls. Besides the great cataract of Niagara, a mile wide and 164 feet high, which New York shares with Canada, there are many other falls worthy of mention, as those of the Genesee at Rochester and Portage, Trenton Falls, the Falls of Ticonderoga, &c. Among the natural features which distinguish the State its mineral springs deserve special mention. Those of Saratoga, Balston, Sharon, Avon, and Richfield are famous throughout the Union. They differ much in chemical composition and medicinal virtues, but all are popular places of resort, and some have gathered round them towns of considerable size.

Climate.— In a general way it may be said that the climate of New York is typical of that of the northern United States, a climate of extremes, hot in summer and cold in winter, and yet healthful, stimulating, and on the whole not disagreeable. The average annual temperature is about 47° Fahr., the average maximum of summer heat 93°, the temperature of 100° being rarely reached, and 102° the highest maximum record. The minimum temperature is about - 20° Fahr., never attained in the southern portion, seldom in the central, but often passed by four or five degrees in the most northern counties. The average rainfall is about 40 inches. Frosts begin from September 1st to October 1st, and end from April 1st to May 1st, according to the locality and year. In the Adirondack region the snowfall is heavy, the winter long and severe. In central New York it is not uncommon for snow to accumulate to the depth of 3 or 4 feet, and yet this is not persistent. About New York city and on Long Island the snow rarely exceeds a foot in depth, sleighing is always uncertain, and sometimes the ground will be bare for weeks together. Thus it will be seen that the climate of New York is intermediate in character between that of New England and the Mississippi valley States,—a little milder than the first, severer than the last. The great lakes which border it are never frozen to their centres, and exert an equalizing influence upon the climate of their shores.

In the absence of extensive alluvial plains and marshes, there is little malaria, and the climate is salubrious. About New York city and on Long Island the ocean softens the rigours of winter, and through the influence of the Arctic current, which bathes the coast as far south as Cape Hatteras, renders the summer perceptibly cooler.

The local variation of climate within the limits of the State will be best seen by the following table :— [table]

Fauna. —At the advent of the whites the fauna of New York included all the wild animals which were found in the north-eastern States of the Union or the adjacent portions of Canada, but by the cutting off of forests, and the occupation of the surface by farms, the range of the native animals has been greatly reduced, and they have been unceasingly destroyed by man. Formerly the elk, the moose, and the caribou were abundant in the northern part of the State, but are now all exterminated, while the Virginia deer in many localities is still quite plentiful. Of the carnivorous animals, the couguar, the black bear, two species of lynx, the red and grey foxes, the wolf, otter, fisher, pine marten, mink, and skunk still remain, but the wolf is on the eve of extermination, and the wolverine, never abundant, has perhaps migrated northward. Among the rodents the beaver and. variable hare are found, but in small numbers, while rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, fieldmice, <fcc., are still unpleasantly numerous.

Civilization has made but little difference with the reptiles, birds, and fishes. All the birds indigenous to the eastern portion of the continent may probably at times be found within the State, though their relative numbers are affected by the removal of the forests. Among the reptiles are seventeen species of snakes, three of which, two rattlesnakes and the copperhead, are venomous. The fishes include all the species found in the lower lakes, in the rivers of the temperate portions of the continent, and on the Atlantic coast; and the fisheries constitute an important element in the revenues and subsistence of the people. The streams and lakes of the more elevated portions contain brook trout in abundance; those of the lower levels are well stocked with bass, pickerel, perch, and other game fish. The salmon, which formerly inhabited the Hudson and its tributaries, was long since exterminated; but an effort has been made to restock some of the streams, and, like the German carp recently introduced, it may now be reckoned as an inhabitant of the waters of New York. Some of the interior lakes are stocked with a land-locked salmon, or lake trout, a valuable and interesting fish. The oyster industry of the coast has its chief commercial centre in New York city, and an important fraction of the supply of clams, oysters, lobsters, and sea fish is obtained from the New York coast.

Flora.— Originally the surface of New York was occupied by an almost unbroken forest, and, as a consequence of the general fertility of the soil, its topographical diversity, and the range of latitude and longitude, the flora is rich and varied. About seventy species of trees are known to inhabit the State, and these include all found in the adjacent portions of the Union and Canada. The most abundant are oaks, of which there are fifteen species, but with these mingle five species each of maple, pine, and poplar, four species of hickory, three each of elm, spruce, and ash, two of willow, cherry, magnolia, and pepperidge, and one each of larch, liriodendron, dogwood, arbor vitae, balsam, yew, sycamore, honey locust, sweet gum, locust, butternut, black walnut, chestnut, beech, hornbeam, basswood, sassafras, and mulberry. On the summits of the Adirondacks a true alpine vegetation is found, though consisting of but a small number of plants; several of these exist in no other locality in the United States except the mountain summits of Vermont and New Hampshire. The flowering plants and ferns of New York were studied with much care by the late Dr Torrey, and his report upon them forms two of the series of twenty-three quarto volumes which compose the Report on the Natural History of New York. The flowering plants enumerated by Dr Torrey amount to 1540 species, to which a few additions have since been made. The ferns number fifty-four species —more than are found in any other State; the lower forms of plant life, .seaweeds, fungi, lichens, &c., are constantly supplying new material, and many years will yet be required for their complete elaboration.

Geology.— The geological structure of New York is more varied and comprehensive than that of any other State, since it includes, with perhaps the exception of the Jurassic, the entire geological column from the Archaean to the Tertiary. A tabular view of the relations of the rocks of New York may be given as follows :— [table]

The surface exposures of these rocks can be seen at a glance by reference to the accompanying outline map.

The boundaries of the State enclose an area which once formed a part of the eastern declivity of the Archaean continent, of which the Canadian and Adirondack highlands art the most important representatives. These are composed of Laurentian rocks, and are perhaps the oldest portion of the earth’s surface. Upon the slope of this old continent the ocean rose and fell in the different geological ages, cutting away the shore by its waves in its advance, and spreading the debris in sheets of sand and gravel—old sea beaches. During long-continued periods of submergence organic sediments, composed of the hard parts of marine animals, accumulated over the sea bottom. In the process of emergence the shallowing and retreating sea spread over its deep water deposits mixed sediments, the finer wash of the land and organic material, carbonaceous or calcareous. When indurated, these three kinds of deposits became (1) sandstones or conglomerates, (2) limestones, (3) shales or earthy limestones. During the intervals of emergence the surface was more or less eroded, and the elevations gave obliquity to the planes of deposition, so that in each invasion of the sea it deposited its round of sediments unconformably upon the older ones. The repeated submergences which have here left their record did not cover the same area, but overlapped in such a way that the succession of deposits is easily made out,— the different groups which we call geological systems being separable by unconformability along the planes of contact, by lithological characters which are faithful records of conditions of deposition, and by differences exhibited in their fossils, for in the long intervals which separated these inundations the life of sea and land was completely and repeatedly revolutionized.

The processes described above went on through the Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous ages, forming on the south shore of the Laurentian continent the most complete and consecutive record of Palaeozoic time of which we have any knowledge. Then the strata along a line passing south-westerly through eastern New York were raised in a series of folds which we call the Alleghany Mountains, and at this time all the interval between the Atlantic and the Mississippi was elevated above the ocean. There it has since remained, the sea rising and falling upon its margin, and leaving its marks, but never submerging the interior. The geological record was continued by minor contributions to the land along the Atlantic coast during the Triassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary ages, and by the grinding and transporting action of glaciers which once covered the entire surface of the State.

Previous to the elevation of the Alleghanies the sheets of Palaeozoic rocks formed a littoral plain sloping gently southward from the Archaean continent. But in the formation of this mountain belt the country traversed by the southern line of the State was left with a surface inclination northward, and between the Alleghanies and the Canadian and Adirondack highlands a broad valley was formed which became the channel of drainage for a great interior area. Through this valley flowed a large river which reached the sea at or near New York island. From the Carboniferous age to the Ice period this was the course of the drainage of the interior, and thus was formed the great water-gap between the Helder berg and Adirondack Mountains, the gate of the continent, through which the tide of migration has flowed from the seaboard into the Mississippi valley, and where the canal and railroad lines have been constructed which are the great arteries of commerce.

During portions of the Tertiary age perhaps the whole, but certainly the eastern margin, of the continent stood many hundred feet above its present level. The drainage of the interior flowed freely and rapidly through the channel which has been described, until that part of it which lies within the State was cut below the present sealevel, and the great river, which as a whole has never been named, but of which the Hudson, the Niagara, the Detroit, and the St Mary’s are representatives, reached the ocean 80 miles south and east of New York harbour, for its channel may be traced to that point on the sea bottom, and its mouth was 600 feet below its present one. By a subsequent depression of the land or rise in the ocean-level the sea covered much of its old shore, and filled the channels cut by subaerial erosion; the Hudson became an arm of the sea, and the labyrinth of tideways was formed which are such a marked feature of the coast, and such important auxiliaries to New York harbour. During the Ice period important changes were made in the topography of the State,—by local glaciers in its advent and decline, by the great ice sheet at its climax, —the first perhaps increasing topographical variety, the second producing monotony by grinding down and rounding over asperities, and filling depressions with the debris.

The basins of the great lakes which border New York, —Ontario, Erie, and Champlain,—and of the peculiar elongated lakes of the interior, are largely the work of glaciers, which broadened and perhaps deepened river channels, and dammed them up with moraines. When the glaciers retreated from the area of New York many of the old channels of drainage were left partially or completely filled, and the flow of surface water took in some cases new directions. Among the obstructed channels was that of the Hudson west of Albany, filled by the Ontario glacier. By this cause the great river flowing from the interior was deflected from its ancient course and found a line of lowest levels leading from the north-east instead of that from the south-east corner of the Ontario valley. In this way the St Lawrence was made the outlet of the interior basin, and the Mohawk dwindled to a local draining stream. Long Island Sound and part of Long Island itself should also be classed among the products of glacial action, the Sound having been scooped out by the great glacier when it left the more resistant ledges of crystalline rocks which occupy south-eastern New York and Connecticut, and plunged into the softer Cretaceous and Tertiary beds which formed the littoral plain that bordered the continent,—the hills of the island being covered, and in part composed of loose material transported by the glacier and deposited along its edge.

Minerals.— The mineral resources of New York, though less varied than those of some other States, are still of great importance. The most valuable of these are extensive deposits of iron ore, viz. :—(1) magnetite, found in great abundance in the Adirondack region, and in Putnam, Orange, and Rockland counties; (2) haematite, mined in the vicinity of Rossie (St Lawrence county), Clinton (Oneida county), and elsewhere; (3) limonite, largely worked on Staten Island, and at Amenia, Sharon, &c., on the line of the New York and Harlem Railroad; (4) siderite, mined at Hyde Park on the Hudson. The production of ore from these mines in 1879 was 1,239,759 tons, valued at $3,499,132; and New York is surpassed in the quantity of iron produced by Michigan and Pennsylvania only.

The quarries of New York are numerous, and they furnish a great variety of products :—granite in the Adirondacks and along the Hudson; roofing slate in Washington county; white marble in Westchester and St Lawrence counties; red marble at Warwick, Orange county; black marble at Glenn’s Falls; verde antique at Moriah and Thurman. Sandstone comes from Potsdam, Medina, and various other localities; shell-limestone from Lockport and Hudson; excellent flagging from Kingston on the Hudson; and paving stone from the trap of the Palisades. In 1880 the quarries of New York numbered two hundred and fifty-one, and the value of their product was $1,261,495. A large amount of hydraulic cement is supplied from the quarries at Rondout (Ulster county), Manlius (Onondaga county), and Akron near Buffalo; also gypsum from the vicinity of Syracuse. The deposits of these substances are very extensive, and their production could be increased indefinitely. Another item of importance among the mineral resources of the State is the salt produced from the salt-wells at Syracuse; these have been worked for many years, and the present annual product is 10,997,408 bushels, having a value of $1,374,666. In south-western New York gas and oil springs are numerous, and at Fredonia the gas has been used in lighting houses for half a century. Recent discoveries show that the petroleum fields of Pennsylvania extend into New York, and it is probable that petroleum will soon claim a place among the mineral products of the State.

The Amboy clays of New Jersey extend across Staten and Long Islands. With further investigation they may prove as valuable in the one State as in the other. (j. s. n.*) History.— Recent investigations have added little to the knowledge of the prehistoric period of the territory known as the Middle States. The bias of scientific opinion...