OBLITERATED CONTINENTS. 145 



taking down what the forces of upheaval had reared. 

 Cubic miles of the Alleghanies have been reduced to sand. 

 The proud summits of the mountains lie strewed along 

 the humble shores of the Atlantic States. 



There stand the Catskills, a pile of horizontal leaves 

 of red sandstone. Abruptly, on either slope, the rocky 

 strata terminate. There was a time when they continued 

 eastward across the valley of the Hudson. The wear of 

 chiliads of years has carted the formation away. There 

 was a time when they continued westward across the en- 

 tire southern border of the state. Those cliffs at Panama, 

 in Chautauqua county, are a remnant left as a specimen 

 of the formation, for the edification of the student of na- 

 ture. The huge blocks of the " Rock Cities " of Alleghany 

 and Cattaraugus counties in the same state are samples left 

 for the encouragement of geologists in those regions. 

 Other specimen rocks of the Catskills may be seen in places 

 from Delaware county westward. It is fearful to contem- 

 plate the immensity of the mechanical power which could 

 carry away the surface of half a state to the depth of a 

 thousand feet. Here, at fifty cents a cubic yard, would be 

 a perennial job for the contractor of the " New York ring." 



Without leaving the same state, let me take the reader 

 to the ridge road which runs along the south shore of 

 Lake Ontario. Here the broad sheets of sandstone, lime- 

 stone and shale which underlie the state come to the sur- 

 face and terminate in an abrupt cliff. Beyond is Lake 

 Ontario. What has become of the missing continuation 

 of these formations? 



Go to the Niagara gorge; see how the faithful indus- 

 try of an agent " as weak as water " can accomplish re- 

 sults which defy the capacity of human engineering. Here 



