194 STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. 



Appalachian chain supports this conchision ; the trutli of which is confirmed by the 

 excessively folded and dislocated condition of the strata along this whole belt of 

 country, and the gradation to features of less and less disturbance as we cross the 

 strata westward still further, by the progressive flattening of the anticlinal arches, by 

 the decreasing amount of crystallization in the rocks, and even the increasing cjuantity 

 of the volatile bitumen in the coal. When we advert to this repetition of igneous ac- 

 tion along this chief belt of volcanic force, upon the early elevated Primal and Matinal 

 deposits, we can no longer wonder at their highly metamorphic condition, nor hesitate 

 to impute to such cause any extent of lithological alteration exhibited by portions of 

 the strata, even to the aping of true granite and gneiss. 



The suggestion we have here made, that the Primal and Matinal rocks of the White 

 Mountains emerged from the waters in the Levant period, and were elevated into anti- 

 clinal and synclinal flexures with a different strike from those of the more extensive 

 crust undulations of the late carboniferous date, offers a natural cause, v/e think, for 

 the superior elevation of their outcrops in this mountain chain, compared with their 

 height in the Green Mountains and other districts where only one system of axes, upon 

 a large scale, is discernible. As the level of the water is highest at the intersection of 

 two crossing billows, we can understand why in a region of two interfering sets of dips 

 or archings in the strata, such as we see indicated in the great defile of the Saco, there 

 should coexist a series of loftier peaks than are anywhere else presented in the general 

 mountain chain. The same intersection of axes of diff'erent geological dates has prob- 

 ably produced in like manner the very elevated and pyramidal group of mountains 

 between Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario, to which the general name of the Adiron- 

 dack range is given. The prodigious elevation and insulation of the peaks of the Alps 

 have likewise manifestly originated in the want of coincidence in the great folds or 

 axes, during the successive movements of elevation. 



Vieivs of y. P. Lesley. The fullest statement of the views of Mr. 

 Lesley, which I have seen, is contained in the Proceedings of the Acad- 

 emy of Natural Sciences of PhiladelpJiia, for i860, page 363. 



Mr. Lesley stated briefly the results of some observations he made in the White 

 Mountains of New Hampshire during the summer. His visits to this region in 1849, 

 and subsequent years, had laid the foundation for a growing conviction that the range 

 of the White Mountains would prove to be syticlinal instead of anticlinal, and there- 

 fore of probably Devonian age. A section which he made in 1857, along the Grand 

 Trunk R. R., showed him the synclinal structure, with comparatively low dips, and at 

 least two main anticlinal divisions. The profile in the Franconia notch is evidently a 

 cliff outcrop of a horizontal plate. The newly opened Greeley Mountain House in 

 Waterville, in a cul-de-sac valley at the head of Mad River, and six or eight miles in 

 an east line through the woods from the Flume House, is surrounded by bold outcrops 

 of nearly horizontal massive plates of granite. Ascending Mad River from Campton, 



