Here was a barrier long and thick, with ridge after ridge of lifted and forested earth, with knife-blade vales between, and only here and there a break away and an encompassed treasure of broad and fertile valley.

The Appalachians made a true Chinese Wall, shutting all England-in-America, in those early days, out from the vast inland plateau of the continent, keeping upon the seaboard all England-in-America, from the north to the south.

To Virginia these were the mysterious mountains just beyond which, at first, were held to be the South Sea and Cathay.

Now, men's knowledge being larger by a hundred years, it was known that the South Sea could not be so near.
The French from Canada, going by way of the St.Lawrence and the Great Lakes, had penetrated very far beyond and had found not the South Sea but a mighty river flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

What was the real nature of this world which had been found to lie over the mountains?
More and more Virginians were inclined to find out, foreseeing that they would need room for their growing population.