GEOLOGY OF MOUNT DESERT. 59 



again, rearing their crests to the height of the clouds ; he 

 must watch them slowly, slowly wearing away till only 

 their roots remain. Even as we are told that in man 

 death begins with birth, so with the mountains : their 

 wasting begins as they first rise above the sea, and, how- 

 ever lofty they grow, they must in the end be prostrated. 

 Energetic mountains of great altitude, so young that they 

 are still high and growing, are not the only kind of moun- 

 tains that cross tlie face of the earth. Many a mountain 

 range, once lofty, has been laid low ; and it is as a part of 

 such a range that we must regard both the highlands and 

 lowlands of Mount Desert. 



The narrow limits of the Island suffice to give us an 

 understanding of its granitic belt ; but in the present sec- 

 tion the Island must be regarded merely as a part of New 

 England. It is only from a general survey of a consider- 

 able area that a just view of its parts can be gained. Let 

 the reader, therefore, now recollect what he has seen of 

 New England elsewhere, and follow a rapid sketch of its 

 history as a wasting land. 



Although New England is a rugged country, an extended 

 view from its hill tops brings to sight a comparatively even 

 sky line, at whose elevation extensive uplands often stretch 

 many miles without great inequality of height. The moun- 

 tains that rise above this sky line and the valleys that sink 

 below it may be for the moment left out of consideration. 

 The upland is the most general feature of inner New Eng- 

 land, and must be distinctly recognized. This upland 

 surface, gradually descending towards the seacoast, merges 

 into the lowland that was mentioned in the first sentence 

 of this essay. The whole is manifestly a surface of denuda- 

 tion, for its stratified rocks are nearly always exposed on 

 edge, and their former extension has been greatly cur- 

 tailed ; while its crystalline rocks in almost every case pos- 

 sess a coarseness of texture and a structural relation to 



