[9급 국가직 영어 2015년 20번]

East of the Mississippi, the land rises slowly into the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. At the edge of the Canadian plains, the Canadian Shield, a giant core of rock centered on the Hudson and James Bays, anchors the continent. The stony land of the Shield makes up the eastern half of Canada and the northeastern United States. In northern Quebec, the Canadian Shield descends to the Hudson Bay. The heavily eroded Appalachian Mountains are North America's oldest mountains and the continent's second-longest mountain range. They extend about 1,500 miles from Quebec to central Alabama. Coastal lowlands lie east and south of the Appalachians. Between the mountains and the coastal lowlands lies a wide area of rolling hills. Many rivers cut through the Piedmont and flow across to the Atlantic Coastal Plain in the Carolinas.