78 Hayes and Campbell—Appalachian Geomorphology. 
character or attitude of the underlying strata. That this was 
rather the exceptional case, however, is inferred from the infre- 
quence of superimposed drainage which can be attributed di- 
rectly to baselevel wanderings. Probably the outcrops of many 
if not most of the hard beds appeared embossed in low relief 
upon the baseleveled plain. The distribution of the unreduced 
areas, so far as they can be determined at the present time, is 
shown in plate 5. It will be seen that these areas coincide in 
position with the present mountain regions. Doubtless many 
points which then stood slightly above the peneplain have been 
so reduced by subsequent erosion that their summits no longer 
rise above its general level. Western North Carolina as early as 
Cretaceous time was the culminating point of the Appalachian 
highlands, a position which it has held unterruptedly from that 
time to the present. At the close of the period of baseleveling 
the mountains here stood at altitudes varying from 3,000 to 3,600 
feet above sealevel, and in some portions of the region they have 
changed in appearance but little from that time to this. Thus, 
in the Asheville region there was then a broad, level valley, over 
whose surface the streams meandered in winding courses. En- 
circling the valley were the same mountains as today with almost 
the same contours. The chief difference is in the altitude of the 
baseleveled valley, which then stood near sealevel, but now has 
an elevation of 2,400 feet, and in the deep gorges which the 
present streams have etched below its surface. The present line 
of the Blue ridge in Virginia was marked by a series of monad- 
nocks, isolated or in groups, but not comparable in extent with 
the mountain mass toward the southwest. 
In the region of the Cumberland mountains, across the Appa- 
lachian valley from the Great Smokies, the map shows some 
areas not reduced to baselevel. ‘These formed a group of monad- 
nocks the highest of which, the Big Black mountains, did not 
much exceed 1,500 feet in altitude. They are composed of rocks 
not specially obdurate and, as suggested above, probably owe 
their preservation from erosion to the surrounding barrier formed 
by the great Carboniferous conglomerate, and also to their posi- 
tion in the interior, away from the main drainage lines. 
In the valley region where the rocks are highly tilted and 
present sharp ¢ontrasts in capacity for resisting erosion, many 
short ridges or linear monadnocks stood from 100 to 1,000 feet 
above the baselevel. These form the higher portions of many 
