99 PALJ]ONTOLOGY OF NEW- YORK. 



In what I have stated, and in the conclusions drawn, I believe I have 

 controverted no established fact or principle, beyond that of denying 

 the influence of local elevating forces, and the intrusion of ancient or 

 plutonic formations beneath the lines of mountain chains, as ordinarily 

 understood and advocated. In this I believe I am only going back to 

 the views which were long since entertained by geologists relative to 

 mountain elevation. In other respects, the views I have advanced are 

 the legitimate results of observation, and an extension in the application 

 of laws well established and acknowledged in science. 



The facts here adduced relative to the strata composing the Appala- 

 chian range and their extension to the west and southwest, are all 

 capable of verification ; and the deductions hence drawn seem to me 

 perfectly legitimate. I believe, moreover, that this mountain chain, in 

 its component parts, and in its mode of accumulation, and the process 

 by which it has assumed its present position, does not differ materially 

 from other mountain ranges. 



The direction of any mountain chain, I would infer, corresponds with 

 the original line of greatest accumulation, or that line along which the 

 coarser and more abundant sediments were deposited. The changes 

 consequent upon the accumulation of such a mass of sediments would, 

 often at least, prevent the immediate deposition of another series of 

 beds of consecutive age in the same direction. Neither is it probable 

 that distinct ranges of mountains, though composed of sediments of the 

 same age, would have a corresponding direction. The Rocky mountains, 

 though perhaps fundamentally composed of deposits of the same age as 

 the Appalachians, have had their materials derived from a different 

 source, and distributed by a current having a diflferent direction. More- 

 over the greater height of the Rocky mountains appears to be due to 

 later deposits than those constituting the Appalachian range ; and if 

 we may credit all the facts stated and their verification by collections 

 of fossils, the strata of newer age than the Coal measures, with the 



