The Appalachians-Bill Bryson

Once, aeons ago, the Appalachians were of a scale and majesty to rival the Himalayas—piercing, snow-peaked, pushing breathtakingly through the clouds to heights of four miles or more.

Once, aeons ago, the Appalachians were of a scale and majesty to rival the Himalayas—piercing, snow-peaked, pushing breathtakingly through the clouds to heights of four miles or more.

Once, aeons ago, the Appalachians were of a scale and majesty to rival the Himalayas—piercing, snow-peaked, pushing breathtakingly through the clouds to heights of four miles or more.

Hampshire’s Mount Washington is still an imposing presence, but the stony mass that rises from the New

Hampshire’s Mount Washington is still an imposing presence, but the stony mass that rises from the New

England woods today represents, at most, the stubby bottom one-third of what was ten million years ago.

That the Appalachian Mountains present so much more modest an aspect today is because they have had so much time in which to wear away.

That the Appalachian Mountains present so much more modest an aspect today is because they have had so much time in which to wear away.

Appalachians are immensely old—older than the oceans and continents (at least in their present configurations), far, far older than most other mountain chains, older indeed than almost all other landscape features on earth.

Appalachians are immensely old—older than the oceans and continents (at least in their present configurations), far, far older than most other mountain chains, older indeed than almost all other landscape features on earth.

Appalachians are immensely old—older than the oceans and continents (at least in their present configurations), far, far older than most other mountain chains, older indeed than almost all other landscape features on earth.

Then some unexplained turmoil within the earth’s mantle caused the land to break apart and drift off as vast asymmetrical chunks.

It was during the third of these collisions, starting about 470 million years ago, that the Appalachians were first pushed up (like a rucked1 carpet, as the analogy nearly always has it).

The continents didn’t just move in and out from each other in some kind of grand slow-motion square dance but spun in lazy circles, changed their orientation, went on cruises to the tropics and poles, made friends with smaller land masses, and brought them home.

Canada appears to have originated in Morocco.

Parts of Greenland, Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia have the same rocks as the eastern United States— are, in effect, ruptured outposts of the Appalachians.

There are even suggestions that mountains as far south as the Shackleton Range in Antarctica may be fragments of the Appalachian family.

There are even suggestions that mountains as far south as the Shackleton Range in Antarctica may be fragments of the Appalachian family.