CONFIGURATION OF A CKETACEOUS PENEPLAIN. 



551 



of geutly sloping summits here rise above the average height of the country ; 

 the old lowland here was less denuded than in Connecticut, and hardly de- 

 serves the name of peneplain. Farther northward we find such isolated 

 commanding summits as Monadnock, Sunapee, and Kearsarge, in New 

 Hampshire, conspicuously above the general upland of their district ; these 

 might well have been called mountains even when the country about them 

 Avas a lowland. The same may be said of Greylock, which rises so distinctly 

 above the level of the Hoosac plateau in northwestern Massachusetts, and 

 so with many other examples that might be noted. Still the evenness of the 

 plateau is its first characteristic, as has been pointed out by Emerson. Our 

 mental reconstruction of the lowland of denudation of southern New Eng- 

 land must evidently not be too geometrical ; it must include gentle hills and 

 occasional low mountains, as well as a nearly featureless intervening low- 



Figure 1 — Cretaceous Peneplain in New England. 



land ; but the latter was predominant. The topographic maps of the Massa- 

 chusetts atlas, lately issued, give very good illustration of the general form 

 of the plateau uplands ; the sheets named Hawley, Becket, Sandisfield, 

 Chesterfield, Granville, Belchertowu, and Barre may be especially mentioned 

 in this connection. 



When one becomes convinced of the verity of the explanation offered for 

 the origin of the plateau — that it was once a lowland of denudation, a base- 

 leveled peneplain — it must be admitted that its entire extent may have 

 greatly exceeded that of southern New England. The process of baselevel- 

 iug could not have been local, but must have affected broad areas. It is 

 therefore with some confidence that a search for other parts of the old pene- 

 plain is undertaken. 



New York being unmapped, it is advisable to cross to New Jersey, whose 

 form is so fully represented in the state atlas, and see what may be discov- 

 ered there. 



