SOME RIVERS OF CONNECTICUT. 383 



extended twenty-five miles or more farther inland. If, in the 

 time which has elapsed since the deposition of these beds, there 

 has been erosion sufificient to strip them off from such a broad 

 area in New Jersey, may they not, in Connecticut, under presum- 

 ably similar conditions, have been equally eroded ? 



There is much which makes this hypothesis attractive, and, 

 as the facts were first studied, it seemed the most likely one. It 

 affords a good explanation, not only for the courses of the 

 Housatonic and Connecticut, but also for other rivers along the 

 sound. It seems, also, at first thought, to be well supported by 

 analogy from New Jersey. But a closer study of the situation 

 in that state reveals marked differences in the attendant circum- 

 stances. There the soft Triassic sandstone must have been worn 

 down to a lowland early in the Cretaceous cycle, perhaps by the 

 close of Jurassic time or thereabouts, while the harder crystal- 

 lines retained a strong relief. The slight subsidence, which 

 marked the beginning of marine Cretaceous in New Jersey, 

 allowed the Cretaceous sea to transgress rapidly the baseleveled 

 sandstones to the foot of the crystalline hills, but not to cover 

 them to any extent. It is not probable that the crystallines in 

 Connecticut had been brought nearer to baselevel than those in 

 New Jersey at the time of the Cretaceous deposits. There is no 

 evidence to show that the subsidence was greater in Connecticut 

 than in New Jersey, and, therefore, from a priori considerations; 

 the conclusion would seem to follow that the subsidence, which 

 permitted the Cretaceous sea to cover the Triassic sandstone area 

 of New Jersey, was not sufificient to permit the sea to cover the 

 then unsubdued crystalline hills of Connecticut. Although this 

 hypothesis is not to be hastily thrown aside, for theoretical rea- 

 sons, yet it would seem necessary to hold it very lightly, at least 

 until some positive proof is found of the former existence of the 

 Cretaceous or some later formation in that region. The first sug- 

 gestion, that the lower Connecticut was a consequent river in the 

 Cretaceous cycle and was revived by the post -Cretaceous uplift, 

 is, at the present state of knowledge, the most probable. 



The Farmingtofi. The roundabout course of this river pre- 



