INTERPRETATION OF LAND FORMS 125 



side of the former, each bringing a contribution to the main 

 stream, proportioned to its magnitude; and, except where a 

 cataract now and then intervenes, all having that nice adjust- 

 ment in their levels, which is the more wonderful, the greater 

 the irregularity of the surface. These secondary vallies have 

 others of a smaller size opening into them; and, among moun- 

 tains of the first order, where all is laid out on the greatest scale, 

 these ramifications are continued to a fourth, and even a fifth, 

 each diminishing in size as it increases in elevation, and as its 

 supply of water is less. Through them all, this law is in gen- 

 eral observed, that where a higher valley joins a lower one, of 

 the two angles which it makes with the latter, that which is 

 obtuse is always on the descending side; . . . what else but the 

 water itself, working its way through obstacles of unequal 

 resistance, could have opened or kept up a communication 

 between the inequalities of an irregular and alpine surface . . . 



. . . The probability of such a constitution [arrangement of 

 valleys] having arisen from another cause, is, to the probability 

 of its having arisen from the running of water, in such a pro- 

 portion as unity bears to a number infinitely great. 



. . . With Dr. Hutton, we shall be disposed to consider those 

 great chains of mountains, which traverse the surface of the 

 globe, as cut out of masses vastly greater, and more lofty than 

 any thing that now remains. 



From this gradual change of lakes into rivers, it follows, that 

 a lake is but a temporary and accidental condition of a river, 

 which is every day approaching to its termination; and the 

 truth of this is attested, not only by the lakes that have existed, 

 but also by those that continue to exist. ' ' 



Steps Backward. 



Even Button's clear reasoning, firmly buttressed by 

 concrete examples, was insufficient to overcome the belief 

 in ready-made or violently formed valleys and original 

 corrugations and irregularities of mountain surface. 

 The pages of the Journal show that the principles laid 

 down by Playfair were too far in advance of the times to 

 secure general acceptance. In the first volume of the 

 Journal, the gorge of the French Broad River is assigned 

 by Kain to "some dreadful commotion in nature which 

 probably shook these mountains to their bases," 4 and 

 the gorge of the lower Connecticut is considered by 

 Hitchcock (1824) 5 as a breach which drained a series of 

 lakes "not many centuries before the settlement of this 



