Ngiv England and the Rhine Country. 71 



for example, a cll)se correspondence may be found between our 

 dissected New England plateau and the Hunsriick-Taunus 

 plateau, through which the Rhine has cut its famous gorge 

 below Bingen.* Here we find an even upland, with occasional 

 eminences rising above it, aiid with deep valleys sunk below it. 

 The eminences on the plateau are there, as 'with us, residuals of 

 a once much greater mass, rising moderately above a base- 

 levelled surface ; the valleys are the work of a later cycle of 

 development, inaugurated when the old baselevelled surface 

 was uplifted to its present altitude. In all this, southern New 

 England and the plateau of the middle Rhine are thoroughly 

 homologous, but certain significant diff'erences between the two 

 regions should be noted: The plateau of the middle Rhine is 

 so extremel}^ flat-topped that it must be conceived as having 

 advanced further in its first cycle of denudation than New 

 England ; indeed, it is the best illustration of a smoothly 

 baselevelled" area, that I have found, and serves me as a type of 

 such a form. On the other hand, its valleys are much narrower 

 • than ours ; hence its second cycle must be regarded as less ad- 

 vanced than ours. Both regions possess composite topography, 

 including similar elements; but the stages in the two cycles of 

 development represented in each case do not precisely agree. 



I cannot now delay to illustrate other elements of our New 

 England topography, even in so brief a manner as the plateau, 

 with its residual mountains and its initiated valleys, has been 

 treated ; but I may record my conviction, based on experience 

 with scholars of different ages and with teachers in schools of 

 various grades, that all our geographical features, when studied 

 out in a manner similar to that outlined above, become lumi- 

 nous in comparison with the obscurity of the conventional ac- 

 counts in our school books. The drowned valleys that form our 

 bays, the drowned rivers that form our estuaries, at once gain a 

 new meaning when thus explained ; and it is not a little remark- 

 able to see how little recognition there is in general teaching of 

 the control exerted by depression of the land on the form of its 

 coast line. liook at Narragansett bay, the fiord of the Thames 

 at Norwich, of the Connecticut above Saybrook, of the Housa- 

 tonic towards Birmingham, of the Hudson even up to Albany — 

 all " drownded," like Pegotty's brothers at old Yarmouth ; yet 



* Excellent lantern slides of this picturesque region may be had from 

 dealers ; much better, in fact, than can be found for our scenery at home, 

 although the latter is much the more important for our schools. 



