Chapter 1 
INTRODUCTION 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND REFERENCE TABLES 
Few states present a more wonderful variety of physical features 
or afford a more excellent opportunity to those interested in the 
study and teaching of geography or geology than does New York. 
Here are rock formations of all the more important types; all the 
leading types of mountains (Adirondacks, Catskills, and Taconics) 
except actual volcanoes, and even true lavas occur in the Adiron- 
dacks and in the Palisades of the Hudson; hundreds of lakes of 
various shapes and kinds; shore outlines ranging from the great 
sand bars and beaches of Long Island to wave-worn cliffs along 
the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario; typical prairie plains ~ 
like that south of Lake Ontario; a great plateau in the south- 
western region; valleys and gorges of varied origin; rivers of all 
types and often with remarkable histories; a striking display of 
relief features; and extensive and varied deposits of glacial origin. 
Accordingly, it is not an exaggeration to say that examples of nearly 
all the most important physical features of the earth are repre- 
sented within the borders of this State. 
As the observer looks out over the State he sees this great 
variety of physical features and, unless he has given some thought 
to the subject, is very likely to regard these as practically un- - 
-changeable, and that they are now essentially as they were in 
the beginning of the earth’s history. Some of the fundamental 
ideas taught in this book are that the physical features of the State, 
as we behold them today, represent but a single phase of a very 
long continued history; that significant changes are now going on 
all around us; and that we are able to interpret the geography of 
the present only by an understanding of its changes in the past. 
Geology is concerned with the evolution of the earth and of its 
inhabitants, as revealed in the rocks. This science is very broad 
in its scope and treats of the processes by which the earth has 
been, and is now being, changed; the structure of the earth; the 
stages through which it has passed, and the SevS apne of the 
organisms which have lived upon it. 
Geography deals with the distribution of the earth’s physical 
features, in their relation to each other, to the life of sea and land 
and human life and culture.: 
Geography is the outward and present expression of geological 
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