TENNESSEE
508
TENNESSEE
certainly was on terms of intimate acquaintance with
Rubens, but we hear nothing of this acquaintance
until 1637, when he married Anne, the daughter of
Brueghel, the pupil of Rubens, and the great painter
came to the wedding. The girl was not yet seventeen ;
she bore Teniers five children and died in 1656.
Six months later, Teniers married Isabel, the daughter
of an eminent person who was secretary to the Council
of Brabant.
Teniers is said to have received a fortune with each wife, and to have made a great deal of money from the sale of his pictures. It is certain that he had ample means, was able to purchase a chateau, to live in good circumstances, and eventually to obtain admission to the ranks of the nobility after he had ceased to exercise his profession for gain. The statement of his appeal to be received as a member of an old family and the description of his coat of arms are still in existence. He was patronized by the Governor of the Netherlands, the Archduke William, and by his successor Don Juan of Austria. Philip IV and Christina of Sweden were also amongst the eminent persons who gave him com- missions for pictures. He was a man of the greatest industry, and his delightful little works, perhaps num- bering nearly eight hundred in all, are to be found all over Europe. As a rule, they are scenes from peasant life, painted in beautiful colour schemes and dex- terously handled. They can be studied especially in the galleries of Dresden, Glasgow, the National Gal- lery in London, the Louvre, the Prado, the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, and the Hermitage at St. Peters- burg. Of these galleries the Louvre has the greatest number, possessing nearly forty examples of the work of this skilful painter. Alone amongst the members of his family, he appears to have been a practical Catholic.
WAtTTEBS, The Flemish School of Painting (Brussels, 1877).
George Charles Williamson.
Tennessee. — The State of Tennessee lies between 35° and 36° 30' N. lat. and 81° 37' and 90° 28' W. long. Its greatest length from east to west is 432 miles, and its ex- treme width 109 miles ; its total area is 43,022 square miles. It touches eight states on its borders, a greater number than is touched by the boundaries of any other state in the Union except Mis- souri. It is un- equalled in the number and excel- lence of its naviga- ble rivers. The Mississippi River washes its western boundary' and the placid Tennessee and beautiful Cumberland, with sources in other states, furnish cheap water transpor- tation for the varied products of the soil and of the mines.
I. Physical Characteristics. — The state has eight gi'eat natural divisions: the Appalachian chain of mountains, called the Unakas, rises on its eiistern borders, the liigh(>st jicaks of which attain an eleva- tion of more than (U)1)0 feet above the sea. Adjoin- ing these mountains on the west and in bet WM'n them and the Cumberland table-land is the valley of east Tennessee, a succession of ridges and minor valleys running in almost unbroken lines from north-east to south-west. Next in ortler comes the Cumberland table-land, an elevated plateau, which rises 20()0 feet above the sea. The soil of this division is sandy, thin and unproductive, and of but little agricultural
importance. Beneath it, however, are buried vast
treasures of coal and iron, and its area is 5100 square
miles. Rising against the western edge of the Cum-
berland table-land and extending to the Tennessee
River, with an average elevation of 1000 feet above
the sea, are the highlands or terrace lands, diversi-
fied in places with rolling hills and wide valleys The
soil in this divison is of varying fertility and of great
agricultural importance and wealth. In the centre of
these highlands and surrounded by them is the great
central basin. The soil of this basin is highly pro-
ductive of all crops suitable to the altitude, and it has
been well named "The Garden of Tennessee". Its
area is 5450 square miles and it has an average de-
pression of 300 feet below the highlands. The next
natural division is the western valley, or the Valley of
the Tennessee. This is a comparatively narrow val-
ley with spurs from the highlands running in towards
it and sometimes down to the margin of the Tennessee
River. The soil is fertile, but marshy spots covered
with cjrpress occur in places along the river. The
average width of this valley is ten or twelve miles and
its length the breadth of the state. It has an area of
1200 square miles and an elevation of 350 feet above
the sea. The plateau or slope of west Tennessee ia
the seventh natural division and peculiar in having
but few rocks, differing in this particular from all the
divisions above mentioned. It is a great plain, slop-
ing p'adually towards the Mississippi River and
varying widely in the character of its soil and scenery.
Furrowed with river valleys, this division extends for a
distance of 84 miles, when it abniptly terminates in
the greater plain, the bottoms of the Rlississippi. The
soil of this division is light and very fertile. The bot-
toms of the Mississippi form the last natural division
of the state and constitute a low, fertile, alluvial plain
teeming with a luxurious vegetable life that is almost
tropical.
'These eight natural divisions have been reduced to three civil divisions: (1) east Tennessee comprises all the territory from the North Carolina line to about the centre of the Cumberland table-land; (2) middle Tennessee extends from the dividing line on the Cum- berland table-land to the Tennessee River; (3) west Tennessee extends from the Tennessee River to the Mississippi River. The cUmate is mild, resulting from latitude and elevation interwoven and modified by varieties of soil, position, exposure, and chains of mountain ranges, so that the characteristic cUmate of everj- state in the LTnion may be found in it. In the spring and autumn the climate is unsurpassed. The summer and winter seasons are short. 'The mean an- nual temperature is about 57 in the valley of east Tennessee, 58 in middle Tennessee, and 69 in west Tennessee.
II. History. — The first expedition of white men into the country included within the limits of the present State of Tennessee was that of Fernando De Soto in the year 1540. Accounts given of De Soto's marches by his followers have led to the belief that he entered 'Tennessee near its eastern boundary and advanced across almost its entire width, reaching the Mississippi River at a point now occupied by the city of Memphis. At the time of this expedition Tennessee was unoccupied except by the Cherochee Indians, who inhabited that part bordering on the 'Tennessee River; the Choctaws, the upper Cumber- land; Shawnees, the lower Cumberland; and the Chickasaws used and claimed the territory between the Teimessee and M ississippi Rivers, now west Tennessee ! The rich section of middle Tennessee was then re-; garded by the Indians as common hunting-ground and; was not useil by them for any other purpose. In 1673' P^ather MarqiU'tte and Joliet descended the Mi.ssis- sipjji Hiver and niailc maps of the coimtry, especialK noting Chickasaw Bluffs, on which Memphis is now situated. In 1682 La Salle made his famous voyagt
