58 AN OUTLINE OF THE 



now be placed to the era of accumulation ; but it was closed 

 at last by elevation, and with that change the present chap- 

 ter in the history of the Island was opened. Judging by 

 the tilted and twisted attitude of the bedded rocks, both on 

 the Island and elsewhere in New England, it is probable 

 that the time of elevation was a time of mountain growth, 

 when the rocks were deformed as well as uplifted. The 

 coast line must then have been pushed farther out to sea, 

 nearer to the margin of our continental shelf. The moun- 

 tains may have risen as high as the Alps ; they may have 

 borne glaciers on their upper slopes ; great rivers may have 

 drained their valleys. The rocks may have suffered moun- 

 tainous deformation at more than one period, writhing 

 under successive applications of crushing forces, after the 

 fashion of mountains of more recent construction, whose 

 building is better known. During, between, and after the 

 periods of crushing, the forces of the atmosphere maintained 

 their ceaseless attack on the exposed surface ; and their 

 final success in reducing the ancient mountains so nearly 

 to a lowland reminds one that the persevering tortoise over- 

 took the spasmodic hare. 



The lack of definiteness by which this section is charac- 

 terized may make appreciation of it more difficult than 

 of one which, like the section on the intrusion of the 

 granite, is accompanied by specific illustration at every 

 step. All the more patiently, therefore, should the reader 

 pass in review the scenes of existing mountains, having 

 faith that where mountain roots are now exposed, there 

 mountain heads once arose. Just as he might recall, while 

 resting on the prostrate trunk of an old moss-covered 

 forest tree the early sprouting of its seed, its adolescent 

 growth above the lowlier bushes, its mature attainment of 

 forest height, its fall and decay in old age : so he must 

 picture the young mountains once rising along what is now 

 the New England coast ; he must see them grow once and 



