Ltwers of Northern New Jersey. 89 
are sunk beneath its surface by its revived streams. It therefore 
no longer fully deserves the name that was properly applicable 
before its elevation. It must not again be called a peneplain, for 
it is now not approaching and almost attaining a smooth surface, 
but is becoming rougher and rougher. It has passed beyond the 
stage of minimum relief, and this significant fact deserves impli- 
cation, at least, in aname. I would therefore call such a region 
a pastplain. The area of the weak Triassic shales was, until its 
late elevation, as good an example of an ultimate baselevelled 
plain as any that I have found ; but now it is a pastplain, as any 
one may see while traveling across it on the train : its doabs are 
broad and continuous, and its valleys are relatively narrow and 
shallow. The Kittatinny lowland is intersected by streams whose 
valleys sink below its generally even, gently rolling surface ; but 
it was never so smooth as the Triassic plain. It was only a pene- 
plain, and it is now a roughened peneplain. Perhaps the more 
adventurous terminologist will call it a past-peneplain ; but I 
dare not venture quite so far as that. When the Highlands were 
lowlands, their surface well deserved the name of peneplain ; but 
they were lifted so long ago into so high a position that they are 
now cut into a complicated mass of rugged uplands. They no 
longer deserve the name of peneplain ; and if in preceding para- 
graphs I have referred to them as constituting an old peneplain, it 
is because no satisfactory name has yet been applied to the par- 
ticular stage of development of plains and plateaus in which they 
now stand. Having tried in vain to invent a term with which to 
name the Highlands, let me now advertise for one in the pages of 
our Magazine. 
WANTED: a name applicable to those broken, rugged regions that 
have been developed by the normal processes of denudation from the 
once continuous surface of a plain or peneplain, The name should 
be if possible homologous with the words, plain, peneplain and past- 
plain; it should be of simple, convenient and euphonious form; it 
must be satisfactory to many other persons than its inventor ; and its 
etymological construction should not be embarrassed by the attempt to 
crowd too much meaning into it. The mere suggestion that it was 
once a plain and that it is now maturely diversified will suffice. 
The topography of northern New Jersey is therefore, like its 
structure, polygenetic. It exhibits very clearly a series of forms 
developed under three different geographic cycles, and closer 
search will doubtless discover forms belonging to yet other cycles, 
