GENERAL GEOGRAPHY.

within as the bay takes a northerly direction,
extending two hundred miles up the country—
seventy-five of which is in the state of Virgi-
nia, and the remainder divides the state of Ma-
ryland near its centre. This bay affords good
anchorage every where, and many excellent har-
bors where shipping may ride in safety, protect-
ed from every wind that blows. Innumerable
streams of fine navigable waters branch out
on either side, penetrating the country in every
direction, besides several noble rivers taking
their rise at the base of the Alleghany ridge, or
near the northern lakes, and flowing from
those elevated countries through many a fertile
valley, to this great reservoir which might al-
most be termed an inland Sea, which varies from
7 to 18 miles in breadth, and covers about 2600
square miles, or 1,700,000 acres. It is generally
as much as nine fathoms deep. For fifty miles
up the Potomac, that river is but an arm of
the Chesapeake. The mouths of all the rivers
making from the bay into either shore, are of
the same character. The Patapsco, Maggothy,
Severn, South River, West River, St Mary's
and York Rivers, on the Western Shore: The
Pokamoke, Wycomoco, Chester, Sasafrass, Elk,
and North-East Rivers, on the Eastern Shore,
have comparatively trifling streams making in
at their heads. Their tide and depth is from
the Chesapeake, of which all of them are but in-
lets.