Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: regions. Thus, in the New England plateau the chief growth during the past forty years has been in the valley lands. In that time if the uplands have not suffered actual loss, they certainly have made no material gains. Upland farming has not proved a remunerative venture, and many of the farms have either been abandoned or converted to other uses. Passes.—Transverse valleys form very important topographic features of mountain-regions. Inasmuch as the ranges themselves are obstacles to communication, it follows that the latter must be concentrated at such cross valleys Oi- gaps as may be traversed. Khaibar Pass, a narrow defile in the Hindu Kush Mountains, between Peshawur and Jelalabad, for many years was the chief gateway between Europe and India. Even now the cost of holding it is an enormous tax upon England. Brenner, St. Gotthard, and the Mont Ceuis Passes are about the only land channels of commerce between Italy and transalpine Europe, and most of the communication between northern Italy and the rest of Europe is carried on by means of these passes. Every transcontinental railway of the American continent crosses the various highlands by means of gaps and passes, and some of them would never have been built were it not for the existence of the passes. Fremont, South, and Marshall Passes have been of historic importance for half a century. The Hudson and Champlain Valley played an important part in the history of the colonies a century before the existence of the United States, and its importance as a gateway to eastern Canada is not likely to be lessened. The Mohawk gap was the first practical route to be maintained between the Atlantic seaboard and the food-producing region of the Great Central Plain. It is to-day the most important one. It is so nearly level that...