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Show 12 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1500 shore into Mexico. The Gulf plain is broken and hilly in the interior, but as it approaches the coast spreads into flat and rather marshy prairies. The state of Florida offers a peculiar modification of the Atlantic plain, and appears to be a slight upheaval of the sea bottom. The most distinguishing feature of the Florida peninsula is the impenetrable wilderness in the south known as the Everglades. West of the Rocky Mountains in the United States a wide plateau of lava formation appears in the country drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries. -.. This area Kes chiefly in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, and was the first point occupied in the settlement of the Pacific slope from the east. South of the Columbia plateau stretches an arid territory including Nevada, parts of Utah and Arizona and southern California. Through this desert the Colorado drains to the Gulf of California, and it is the only considerable river of the area, the other streams all lbsing themselves in the dry soil. Between the ranges of the Pacific slope lie valleys and plains of greater or less extent, the most important being the central valley of California, the Willamette of Oregon, and the lowlands about Puget Sound, in Washington. A striking and significant feature of North America is the chain of Great Lakes- Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior- inland seas of fresh water, forming the political boundary between the United States and Canada. These lakes |