INTRODUCTION. 



Plan of the Paper. The great lesson taught by the study 

 of the outer crust is that the earth-mother, like her children, has 

 attained her present form through ceaseless change change 

 which marks the pulse of life change which will cease only 

 when her internal forces slumber, and her outer envelopes, the 

 cloudy air and surf-bound ocean, no more are moving garments. 

 The flowing landscapes of geologic time may be likened to a 

 kinetoscopic panorama. The scenes transform from age to age, 

 as from act to act; seas and plains and mountains of different 

 types follow and replace each other through time, as the traveler 

 sees them succeed each other in space. At times the drama 

 quickens, and such rapid geologic action has marked the epochs 

 since man has been a spectator on the earth. 



Science demonstrates that mountains are transitory forms, 

 but the eye of man through all his lifetime sees no change, and 

 his reason is appalled at the thought of duration so vast that the 

 millenniums of written history have not recorded the shifting of 

 even one of the fleeting views whose blendings make the moving 

 picture. The reason becomes convinced by argument, but draw- 

 ings assist the imagination to rebuild on the visible rock 

 foundations and eroded structures the shadowy outlines of the 

 former landscapes which they imply. For such graphic study, 

 Central Connecticut is here chosen. Statements of the present 

 surface forms and geologic structures are given as a basis for 

 the reconstruction by drawings of the forms and structures of 

 the past. Having followed the evidence backward through the 

 geologic ages to that period in which obscurity darkens the 

 farther past, our vision is then turned forward and, while taking 

 homeward flight to the present age, we behold the panorama of 

 geologic time. But science not only reconstructs the past. It 

 also asks the questions why and whither. In order not wholly 

 to omit an answer there is given therefore at the close of this 

 study a brief conclusion on the meaning of the shifting scenes. 



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