美国社会与文化chapter 1

chapter 1 The American Land: A Panoramic View The love of place was the earliest loyalty brought to the American shores. The settlers came from countries of their own where they had loved the familiar land, skies, rivers and hills. The American landscape in their eyes was strange, untidy and mysteri​ous; the continent was wild, vast and grand with a luxuriance of plant and animal life that struck all the early explorers who brought with them "the eye of discovery". They liked the place and decided to stay and live there. Out of their extraordinary experience with the new environment, they created a nation called the United States of America. It has been said that America is a nation with an abundance of geography but a shortage of history. There is some truth in the statement. After all, it took less than four hundred years for the na​tional territory to expand from 865,000 square miles of the original thirteen states, with a population of 3. 9 million, lo 3, 549,000 square miles, with about 275 million people living in today's fifty-state U. S. A. In fact, Americans took over the bulk of their nation​al domain within the last century and a half. Even today, much of the United States remains only thinly populated and hardly tamed by civilization. Every nation is in part a country and in part a people. The country of the United States is one of great opportunity and one of considerable challenge as well. Opportunity consists of the favorable position of America, its spaciousness, and the wealth of natural re​sources. Challenge lies in overcoming the physical barriers of relief and distance, and the hazards of flood, drought and frost. In the process of conquering the continent, Americans have reshaped the face of their land, leaving a record of glorious achievements as well as dismal failures. Reversely, in their constant intimate encounters with that massive land, Americans themselves have been shaped and reshaped by the entirely new environment, molding and forging their national character in a unique fashion. General Geographic Characteristics The United States is situated in North America between Canada and Mexico, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pa​cific Ocean. The position of America has always been one of its chief assets. Over 2,000 miles from Europe (or 3,000 miles from Britain) and 7,000 miles from Asia, it was long isolated from the conflicts of these troubled continents. It thus offered itself a haven for those who wished to seek a new life free of restrictions. Not sur​prisingly, many of the first settlers were Separatists, anxious to sep​arate themselves out from the established churches of Western Eu​rope. However, as the settlers moved further away, striking inland across the Appalachians, they isolated themselves even more, enjoy​ing a still greater chance to create a different life. In this sense, isolation helped America to work out a character of its own. Yet, as the world grew less land-based and more ocean-centered, the position of America received fresh value. With im​provements in transportation and communication. America ceased to be a retreat and instead became a cross-roads; a cross-roads be​tween East and West, facing the two most densely populated regions of the world in Western Europe and Eastern Asia- This shift has given the United States vast scope, for instead of being gulfs of sep​aration, the Atlantic and the Pacific have become the lifelines of a new world in which Americans have made their country the focus of the world connections. Additionally, the geographical position has favored Americans in placing their country in the middle of latitudes. It thus is a warm-temperate land and only in northern Alaska is it under the perma​nent threat of frost. Moreover, as it faces two oceans, it is swept by humid and maritime airs and only in the extreme southwest docs it experience chronic drought. No other country has such a favorable climatic disposition — comfortable, stimulating and productive. Two-thirds of Russia is in the cool-temperate and arctic zones, frus​trated by frost and a large part of China is so continental as to be away from rain-bearing winds, debarred by droughts. Another advantage of the United States is the sheer size of the country, which is over 4,000 miles broad and less than 2.000 miles deep. From the first, Americans were impressed by the spaciousness of their environment. This was seen by the way in which they often resolved their difficulties by founding new settlements and creating new territories and states. When the Massachusetts theocracy be​came unbearable, for example, people went out to establish their new sects in new colonies such as Rhode Island. New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Similarly, as the tidewater gentlemen of Virginia and the Carolinas grew too oppressive, people did not hesitate to march to the mountains to set up more independent settlements of their own. This tradition of packing up and moving to the west con​tinued all the way to f890, when the Census Bureau of the United States declared that the whole continent had been settled. What struck the early American colonists more than the size of their new environment was its richness. So much of it could be used. The New England seas were thick with fish and a wealth of forest was found along the Atlantic coast and on the Appalachians. Even greater wealth lay in the Appalachian coalfields. The trans-Appalachians had a super-abundance of coal and oil, together with iron, copper, lead and zinc and above all, of fertile productive soils. The Far West abounded with precious metals and with forest​ed ranges going down to its irrigable basins. Indeed, so great was America's wealth that it was thought to be boundless and, conse​quently, it generated wasteful methods of production that were sad​ly to deplete the non-renewable resources of the land by the mid-twentieth century. To combat waste, extensive conservation pro​jects have been undertaken, and America is now one of the most conservation-minded nations in the world. America's resources, though plentiful, have never been easy to develop. Barriers of distance and relief and certain difficulties in the climate have all had to be overcome before the rich rewards could be won. So, there has been a strong element of challenge in each part of America, evident from the beginning to the present day. New England fisheries arc set in a storm-swept sea where storm-tracks from the interior are carried well out over the ocean. Besides, New England soils arc singularly stony, made up as they were from heavily glaciated land. Virginia and the Carolinas have their "dismal swamps" to put up with: poor drainage and an all but tropical summer often meant fever of one kind or another in the past. And once the interior is reached, new hazards are there to be dealt with. A truly continental climate with strong heating in sum​mer and intense chilling in winter brings July thunderstorms and blizzards. Before the advent of science and technology, the killing of crops by severe winter frosts was quite common, and when spring carne and snow melted, dangerous floods often rolled down the riv​ers and brought widespread ruin. Further west, in the Great Plains and the Pacific basins, rainfall is often unreliable and drought fre​quently hits the area. In brief, then, the United States is a land rich in opportunity and full of challenges. While the abundant opportunity it provides has drawn an endless flow of immigrants from around the world, the challenges it poses have eventually transformed the nation from a small and relatively young nation into a big and relatively mature superpower. The Face of the Land On the topographic map of the United States, the mountains look like jagged masses, the plains like vast flat spaces, and the rivers like meandering threads. Mountains, plains and rivers, like in other countries, constitute the main features of the face of the United States. America's geologic and topographic framework is built around a huge interior lowland that has yielded some of America's greatest agricultural and mineral wealth. This huge interior lowland contains a large bulk of its population, and is the heart of what poli​ticians like to call "middle America". The region is drained by the Mississippi River and its great tributaries, one of the largest naviga​ble systems in the world. The Mississippi is not merely a useful riv​er; it also serves as a potent geographic symbol — the traditional di​viding line in America between "East" and "West". This great low​land rises toward the north, where it butts against the wild bulwark of the Canadian Shield. To the south, the lowland opens to a broad coastal plain that fringes the Gulf of Mexico. To cast and west, the land rises gradually and then abruptly to mountain ranges that flank the lowland to either side and separate it from the Atlantic and Pa​cific Oceans. The mountain ranges differ substantially from each other. The Appalachians on the east stretch almost unbroken from Alabama to the Canadian border and beyond- running parallel to the east coast. They are old mountains (the highest elevation is less than seven thousand feet) with many coal-rich valleys between them, and are set back from the Atlantic by a broad belt of coastal lowland. While this coastal region contains no very remarkable scenery, not much in the way of mineral wealth, it was here that the American nation was planted and took root in the seventeen century. The original thirteen colonies were all located in this narrow belt, and almost half of America's history has been played out here. It was not until the American Revolution that significant numbers of American set​tlers began to move westward across the Appalachians into the inte​rior lowlands. To the west of the interior basin lies the mighty system of mountains, the Rocky Mountains. The Rockies are often said to be ''the backbone of the continent", and arc considered young mountains: of the same age as the Alps in Europe, Himalayas in Asia, and the Andes in South America. Like these ranges, they are high, rough, and irregular. The western United States around the Rockies, unlike the east, has no coastal plain, and the mountains along the Pacific coast drop abruptly and often spectacularly into the sea. This western country is both complicated and varied, con​taining not only some of the highest mountains in North America, but also a vast expanse of intermountain basins, plateaus, and isolat​ed ranges. It is a peculiar and wonderful place — a land of impres​sive scenery, considerable environmental variety, and great mineral wealth. Much of this western country was settled by adventurous folks in search of quick riches, when the "gold rush" swept across the United States from east to west in mid-19th century. It was also settled by people who sought freedom from the conventions and tra​ditions of the crowded, long-settled east, when industrialization both opened up new opportunities in the West and made means of transport available for people to migrate there. Its picturesque scen​ery and thrilling history have captured the imagination of American artists for a long lime, who, for whatever reasons, have painted the American West in bright, uncomplicated colors. In sum, as far as geography is concerned, there are four defina​ble topographic regions in the United States. Viewed from cast to west in the order that European settlers found and took over them, they are (1) the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain; (2) the Appalachians and their foothills; (3) the Interior Lowlands; and (4) the Cor​dillera, a Spanish word referring to all the high rough country of the western third of the United States, which includes both the main mountains and a variety of intermountain valleys, basins, and plat​eaus. The Regional Geography of the United States A country as diverse and as large as the United States was almost bound to evolve different conditions of life, or traditions of living, in different areas. The contrast between New England and Virginia early became apparent. The former, due to its shorter growing sea​son, was less dependent on agriculture and more reliant on trade and industry, owing to its easier access to, and greater use of water power. Additionally, as the area was largely settled by Puritans and Separatists, the middle-class democracy assumed dominant position early on. The latter, in contrast, has a much warmer and more pro​ductive climate and soil, and therefore from its inception, it placed great emphasis on agriculture, particularly on commercial and in​dustrial crops. Because of the enormous importance people attached to the land, landed gentry class there enjoyed prestigious position and. for a long time, Virginia practiced the rule of squirearchy. It is quite obvious, then, that factors of the natural environment, combined with different economic interests and social backgrounds, can produce a very different geography. And, it is in this sense that special conditions in other areas influenced the development of their own regions, and distinct regions, as time went by, eventually emerged within the United States. Of course, regions do not remain static; they change with time and technological progress. With the onrush of industrial revolu​tion, regions in the United States have witnessed great changes over the past two centuries. They are less and less the direct result of na​ture and more and more the work of man. Consequently, the regional geography of the United States is not simply its natural re​gions in human expression. Rather, man has increasingly come to put his own interpretation on nature, subordinating natural features and conditions to economic and social needs and aims. As man has been able to draw some natural regions together, or divide up oth​ers, and create new orientations to plain and mountain, river and coast, man has come to play an increasingly important role in the writing of geography of any country, not the least of which is the United States. In the 18lh-century America, for example- geograph​ical regions were smaller, based on sea and river transportation, and more involved in primary production. As roads and railways devel​oped, as marketing became better organized, and as industries ex​panded, the regions became larger, with the absorption of smaller by greater ones, and with sharper contrasts between industrial and agricultural regions. Over the past two hundred years or so. Americans have tried to divide their country into many different regions. In 1819, for exam​ple. Morse — ''the father of American geography" — divided the country into four regions, namely: New England, the Mid-Atlantic States, the South, and the West. In 1910, less than a hundred years after Morse, the U. S. Census Bureau divided the country up into nine major sections. These were (1) New England; (2) the Mid-Atlantic Stales; (3) the East North-Central States (the Ohio-Wisconsin region ); ( 4) the West North-Central Region (the Missouri-Red River Region}; (5) the South Atlantic States; (6) The East South-Central States (lower Mississippi, east): (7) the West Souih-Ccntral States (lower Mississippi, west, and Texas); (8) the Mountain States (Roekies and intermountain basins); and (9) the Pacific Coast States. At present, as a result of swifter transport, more effective mass communications, a wider web of commercial and financial interests, and, on top of all this, the extensive use of Internet, regions in the United Stales have become increasingly lar​ger and more widespread, leading, in some cases, to the gradual abolition of regional traits, and the emergence of a nearly homogene​ous and perhaps uniform American landscape. Still, regardless of the tremendous impact technology has exerted on regional unique​ness in the United States, their differences are real enough and quite discernable. The following description of five distinct geographic regions is provided to shed some light on the way each particular re​gion has evolved over time and the unique feature it has retained as part of regional identity. The Industrialized Northeast and North-Central Region This area has been the leading U. S. region in industrialization. It is preeminently the nation's manufacturing belt, and is characterized by very dense urban development along (a) the Atlantic Coast Plain from Boston to Baltimore; (b) the Lakeshore plain of the Lower Great Lakes and Lake Michigan, from Cleveland to Milwaukee; and (c) the connecting lowland through the Hudson-Mohawk Gap, from New York to Buffalo. These three great lines of huge industrial-commercial cities owe their association to certain natural linkages. Although they have grown up in the apparently different areas of coast plain. Appalachians, and interior lowlands, they have certain things in common: they lie in the main path of the storms generated between Polar continental and Tropical maritime air; they have been heavily glaciated and possess leached gray-brown soils devel​oped from glacial till; they are in the oak-elm-maple-pine forest zone, replaced largely by pasture, hay, oats, winter wheat and for​age crops as a basis mainly for dairy products; they have rich depos​its of coal, are within easy access by lake or sea to iron ore, and have developed abundance of water power. Yet, the single thing that has enabled the diverse parts of this region stretching from New York to Chicago to be welded into one, has been the complex of postglacial lake terraces and coast plain linked by the great glacial melt-water channels of the Susquehanna and the Mohawk-Hudson. Transportation made the most of these links with road, canal, railroad, and motorway, and industry made the most of this re​markable concentration of routs to open up a vast interior to the coast and keep the interior in touch with overseas. For these and many other reasons, this area has become the most densely populat​ed region in the United States, characterized by the greatest admix​ture of races and cultures, the largest influx of immigrants, the best assemblage of skills, and the biggest consumer market. The South At first glance, the South would also appear to be so diverse as to have little geographical reason for being counted as a region: it too begins on the Atlantic coast, straddles the Appalachian Mountains, and takes in part of what is from the physical point of view, the Midwest. Consequently, there is some truth in the argument that the South is a state of mind rather than a natural region. Yet, given the overriding importance of mental attitudes and cultural tradi​tions, there are common features in the environment that have helped them to take root in the South and keep it a separate region. For one thing, the South includes virtually the whole sweep of the Atlantic and Gulf coast plains from Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande. Expansion of the old way of life established in Virginia and the Carolinas was made easy throughout this plain because it could proceed without much change- always meeting the same landforms, weather regime, vegetation, and soils. This is the zone of the belled lowland, with limestone scarps and clay or sandy vale: this is the re​gion of abandoned raised sea beaches. Indeed, the whole area is un​der the prime influence of the Tropical maritime air mass, and therefore it has a warm-temperate humid climate, characterized by oak-chestnut-walnut forests, the southern pineries, gumwoods and cypress swamps. Everywhere, it is marked by red or yellow lateritic soils. As a result, the same crops can be grown throughout the re​gion, and the tobacco, cotton, and rice of the eastern coast plain have been carried successfully to the West. Southern concentration of its efforts in agriculture in the eigh​teenth and nineteenth centuries meant that industry was slow grow​ing there, although the region is rich in coal and iron, oil and natu​ral gas, bauxite, and various kinds of salts and sulfur. It was only in the late nineteenth century that the "New South" started to ''take off", driving itself toward the rapid industrialization of the region. Even though its population is comparatively low, it is seeing the rapid rise of great cities, especially in the so-called "rocket zone" from Florida to Texas, where many very modern, science-based high-tech industries arc starting up. However, the main distinguish​ing features, of southern population are the large number of African Americans in Deep South, the heavy concentration of Hispanics in Florida, New Mexico and Texas, and the relative homogeneity of Anglo-Americans across the region. The Agricultural Midwest This region forms the core of the Central Lowlands not absorbed by the expansion of the Northeast and the South. It too has its internal differences between a northern glaciated part with grayish soils and a southern unglaciated part with reddish soils. But the downward sweep of Polar continental air to the Great Plains in winter and the northward surge of Tropical Gulf air to the Great Lakes in summer provide unity in its weather. More importantly, it is all brought to​gether by the confluence of the Ohio. Missouri, and Mississippi riv​ers. Navigation by these rivers still keeps many Midwest towns in touch with other, while the transcontinental routes, cutting across the region, far from disrupting it, have helped to keep it together by connecting each river with the other. Agriculture and trade have grown up as the chief occupations to make use of the fertile well-watered lowlands and the great natural routeways. Taking in part of the dairy belt in the North, of the cotton belt in the South, and of the wheat belt in the West, but centering in the corn belt, the region has a considerable range of crops. With a mean July temperature of 25 °C — the optimum for corn, the agri​cultural Midwest has found its chief role as the base of commercial production of corn in the whole continent. The fattening of hogs and beef cattle on the corn, and on corn cake, the making of corn-based whisky, and of corn oil and corn cereals, together with ancil​lary activities, have given it great prosperity. At the same time- the possession of considerable quantities of coal and oil, and its nearness to iron and metals- have enabled it to develop some industry, devot​ed mainly to manufacturing agricultural tools and machines and leather goods. As an agricultural region, the population density of the area is a bit below the national average. It is predominantly white but has seen a large influx of African Americans and Asian Americans into the area, particularly into the cities. The white pop​ulation has been drawn, for the most part- from the agricultural countries of Europe as well as from New England and the Mid-Atlantic States. The Mountain West This region is also mainly agricultural but differs from the Midwest In being dependent on dry farming, irrigation, and ranching. It is the arid part of America, and the problem of aridity, rather than relief and drainage, gives it a measure of unity. The Rockies, how​ever, gather it up to the snows and springs from which its rivers run and thus, although a divide, the Rockies are also a link, drawing together the western Great Plains and the Intermountain plateaus and basins into a single mesh of rivers and coal, roads, railways and passes. Cattle-ranching on the arid Great Plains and sheep-ranching in the mountains and on the intermountain plateaus were long and still continue to be the most widespread occupations. The raising of spring wheat in the northern Great Plains and the Columbia basin and of winter wheat in the southern Great Plains, using dry-farming methods, is also typical. What today gives the region most character are the huge irrigation schemes by which upper Missouri, Columbia and Colorado riv​ers have been dammed, enormous artificial lakes have been made, and water has been distributed to large acreages, producing fodder crops for the ranchers and wheat and vegetables for the urban mar​kets. In spite of much hydroelectric power and many metals, indus​try, on the whole, has not been highly developed in the area so far. Roughly, less than two in ten of the people are engaged in manufac​turing. This is mainly because of a small work force, an inadequate local market, and the cost of contacting markets at a great distance. Hence, population is quite low, and is primarily rural. There are not many colored people, blacks or other ethnic minorities, and its immigrants are mainly from the South and Midwest rather than from Europe. People there are principally native-born and compara​tively homogeneous. The Far West The Far West is America's most rapidly growing region. This is partly because of its magnificent natural advantages, and partly be​cause of joint efforts of universities and business community. Here, America's highest and most beautiful mountains rise to its most spec​tacular coast; here, upland and plain are in close juxtaposition, bringing mining, forestry- ranching and farming close together, thus generating the most fruitful interchange; here, the mild cli​mate of Oregon and the sunny climate of California afford more comfort than anywhere else in the United States, Florida not excluded; here, the two renowned universities — Stanford and UC-Berkeley — attract not only talented students around the world, but also far-sighted, high-tech conscious, and risk-taking businessmen from all over the U. S. ; here, computer industry is almost equal to Silicon Valley and the City of Seattle is sure to lose its charm to its residents if Boeing Company discontinues its operation there; and here lies the opportunity of exploring the whole Pacific realm. Consequently, an extraordinary diverse economy has emerged, with primary production, trade, industry and service in better bal​ance than anywhere else. In response to all this, the area has wit​nessed rapid expansion of population over the past three decades, attracting people from such faraway places as the cast coast and Asi​an countries across the Pacific Ocean. Because of high density of population and constant inflow of new migrants into the area, the Far West is not only becoming more expansive and increasingly het​erogeneous, but is also raising its standard of living more rapidly than many inhabitants can cope with. The Rainfall, the Temperature and the Soil The Rainfall In the Northern Hemisphere, the western portions of the continents are especially favored by prevailing winds. This is because the west​ern lands gather the rains as they come off the ocean, blown by storms that circle from west to east. Unfortunately, the Cascade Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, so close to the west coast, catch the largest share of the rain off the Pacific Ocean be​fore it can go further inland. As a result, there is too little rain for almost the whole western half of the United States, which lies in the "rain shadow" of the mountains. In a great part of that territory, therefore, farmers must depend on irrigation water from the snows or rains that are trapped by the mountains. One of the most important geographic boundaries in the United States is the 50-centimeter rainfall line, which runs north and south almost through the middle of the country. East of the line, farming is relatively easy, and the population is relatively large. West of the line, one finds man-made irrigation systems, dry-farming, grazing, and few people. West of the Rocky Mountain, running all the way from the Canadian border to Mexico, there are vast areas where al​most no trees grow. In this section of the country are the deserts which receive as little as 12. 7 centimeters of rainfall a year. Yet, west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, there are places in which 250 centimeters of rain fall annually. The Temperature Across the United States, there are all kinds of unexpected differ​ences in climate. For instance, along the western coast, the temper​ature changes little between winter and summer. In some places, the average difference between July and January is as little as 10 de​grees centigrade. But in the north-central part of the country, sum​mer and winter are worlds apart. There, the average difference be​tween July and January is 36 degrees centigrade and more violent ex​tremes are common. The coldest days of a typical January may be -40 degrees centigrade, and the hottest July day may be 45 de​grees. In the eastern part of the United States, the difference be​tween summer and winter is also very distinct, but not nearly so ex​treme. Near the southwestern corner of the country, the climate is mild in winter, but in summer the temperature may reach equatorial intensity. In Alaska, almost continuous daylight in summer makes the short growing season an intense one. The variations in temperature within the United States have had a marked effect on the country's economy and living standards. For instance, there is a long crop-growing season along the south​east coast where cotton is the principle product. This is also true in several small strips and pockets to the west where crops like grapes grow well during a large part of the year. In some of the cooler cli​mates or in climates which combine coolness and humidity, animals and produce such as apples, wheat, and corn thrive, giving the United States a wide range of agricultural products. The Soil As for the soil and what grows on it. the American endowment is great. Of its 1.9 billion acres of land, nearly a fifth (4 million) is used for crops, about a half (9 million) for pasture and grazing, and less than a third (6 million) is farm, woodland and forest. Despite the denuding of the Great Forest. there are still big timber stands on the Pacific Coast; in California, Washington, and especially Ore​gon. There are nine-feet-high cornfields in Iowa and a vast stretch of wheat land on the Great Plains from Texas through Minnesota. There are the cotton and tobacco fields of the South and the lush valleys of the Pacific slope. Because of the vast stretch of arable land- together with the application of advanced science and technol​ogy in farming industry, the United States is now one of the leading exporters of agricultural products in the world. When early voyagers approached the land that is now the Unit​ed States, they noticed a sweet and surprising "land smell", a clue that they were near the shore. This "land smell" came from the great, thick forest that covered all the eastern part of the country and stretched about 1,600 kilometers westward until it met the tall grass of the prairies. No one knows just why the woods ended where they did, or why the tall grass of the prairies — the wide rolling and almost treeless plains — began at that point. The reason still re​mains shrouded in mystery, for the eastern part of the prairies' tall grasslands have soil that support tree life. One explanation has it that the Indians burned off the forest in order to force game animals out to the hunters. Another reason is that perhaps some early spe​cial conditions of soil and rainfall were responsible. This has been accepted as a more plausible explanation, although nobody knows for sure. Nevertheless, the early settlers wrote that the prairie grass was very beautiful, interlaced with flowers in the spring, and so tall that a man on foot could not see over it. What is clear now as to why the tall grass becomes short farther west. It is because of lack of rainfall. The transition line roughly follows the important 50-centimeter rainfall line discussed earlier. Still farther west, forests cover the slopes where mountains catch enough rain. On the dry lowland, dry, harsh bushes grow. The greatest wonder of all are the forests of sequoia and fir trees on the northwest coast, where the mountains catch the heavy Pacific rains. These great trees, some of which are 3,000 years old, arc among the largest and oldest living things known. The silent forests are filled with columns of great trunks lighted dimly by sun filtered through leaves far above. New Words and Expressions Panoramic 全景的 bulk of 大多数，大部分 national domain 国家领土．国家领地 spaciousness 开阔，宽广 relief 地形的高低起伏 hazard 危险 asset 财产 a retreat 与世隔离之地 cross-roads 汇集地，活动中心 latitude 纬度 warm-temperate 温热带的 chronic drought 长期性干早 cool-temperate 温寒带 tidewater 沿海低地，海滨地区 theocrac， 神权统治 abound with 富足，充满 deplete 耗尽…资源；使…枯竭 storm-track 风暴路经 glaciated land 冰川地 continental climate 大陆气候 blizzard 暴风雨，大风沙．大风雪 topographic 地形的 jagged 参差不齐的，凹凸不平的 geologic 地质的 tributary 支流 mountain ranges 山脉 picturesque scenery 风最如画的景色 squirearchy 乡绅阶层，乡绅统治 admixture 掺和，混合，掺和剂 the oak-elm-maple-pine forest　　　　　栋一榆－槭一松树林带 zone the tropical maritime air mass　　　　　热带海洋气团 oak-chestnut-walnut forest　　　　　　栋一栗一胡桃树林 gumwoods　　　　　　　　　　　　胶树林 cypress swamp　　　　　　　　　　 白扁柏／柏木沼泽地 lateritic　　　　　　　　　　　　　 红土带的 bauxite　　　　　　　　　　　　　 铝土岩 sulfur 硫，碗确 "rocket zone" “火箭区” the dairy belt 产乳地带，奶制品生产区 the cotton belt 棉产区 the wheat belt 小麦生产区 the corn belt 玉米地带，玉米生产区 ancillary 附属的，从属的 cattle-ranching 牧场放牛 sheep-ranching 牧场放羊 fodder crop 饲料作物 juxtaposition 并列，并置 the Northern Hemisphere 北半球 sequoia tree 红衫树 fir tree 冷杉树 the Appalachians 阿巴拉契亚山脉 the Canadian Shield 加拿大地盾 the Gulf of Mexico　 墨西哥湾 the Rocky Mountains 洛基山脉 the Alps 阿尔卑斯山 the Andes 安第斯山脉 the Hudson Mohawk Gap 哈得孙一莫霍克峡谷 the Susquehanna 萨斯奎哈纳河 the Mohawk-Hudsonajd 莫霍克一哈得孙 the Rio Grande 格兰德河 the Cascade Mountains 喀斯客德山脉 the Sierra Nevada Mountains　　　　　　内华达山脉 Cultural Notes Separatists In religion, separatists refer so those bodies of Christians who with​drew from the Church of England. They desired freedom from church and civil authority, control of each congregation by its own membership, and changes in ritual. In the 16th century, a group of early separatists were known as Brownists after their leader, Robert Brown. The name Independents came into use in the 17th century. Among other separatist groups were the Pilgrims, the Quakers, and the Baptists. Established church It refers to a church made official for a nation by law, such as the Church of England, which was created by Henry VIII, when he broke the union of the English church with Rome in the 16th centu​ry. The established church does not simply get political support from the government, but also obtains financial aid from it. Essay Questions 1. Three primary characteristics of the American landscape are its insulation from Europe and Asia (by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans), its expanse and variety of resources, and its natural network of waterways. Until the 20th century, these factors eliminated the need for large standing armies, offered economic self-sufficiency, and provided internal mobility. To what extent have these and other physical features encouraged national inte​gration of the U.S. ? 2. Compare the geologic and meteorological conditions of the major regions. Consider the influence of topography, soil, and climate upon the maritime trade of New England, the planting of cities along the northern and middle Atlantic Coast, and the develop​ment of large-scale commercial agriculture in the South. 3. Discuss the importance of the Mississippi River to the cultural identity as well as to the natural drainage, the transportation, and the commercial trade of Middle America. 4. The regional geography of the United States is varied and dis​tinctive. Describe- briefly, the geography of three or four re​gions in the U. S. , giving particular attention to their impor​tance, respectively, to American economy. 5. How was the climate of the South conducive to a semi-feudal plantation system and the climate of the upper Midwest to a soci​ety of egalitarian and independent farmers? (Consider this ques​tion in conjunction with the chapter on cultural regions of Amer​ica. )