192 
THE SEINE, THE MEUSE, AND THE MOSELLE 
The robust habit of the Moselle . — Let us next glance at the lower 
course of the Moselle. Passing below its upper branching course 
and following it below Treves through the highlands to the Rliine, 
we find here again a most serpentine valley incised beneath the 
general upland of the region. Ascending from the valley bot- 
tom, which the traveler ordinarily follows, to the level of the 
inclosing upland, it is even more manifest here than in north- 
western France that we have to do with an uplifted and well- 
dissected peneplain. The surrounding region is one in which 
the rocks are greatly deformed, possessing all the characteristics 
of mountain structure, but few of the characteristics of mountain 
height. Indeed, the upland between Treves and the Rhine is 
one of the best examples of an uplifted peneplain that I have 
seen. The gently rolling surface shows little regard for the great 
diversity in the attitude of its rocks. Here and there it is still 
surmounted by low, linear eminences, such as the Idarwald and 
the Soonwald, following the strike of resistant quartzites. These 
I would call “ monadnocks,” taking the name from a t3q:>ical 
residual mountain which surmounts the uplifted peneplain of 
New England in southwestern New Hampshire. 
But how has the Moselle come to follow a meandering valley 
deejfiy incised in the ])eneplain? It is manifest, from what is 
now known concerning the geological development of land sur- 
faces, that during the later stages of the denudation of the middle 
Rhine higlilands the streams of the region must have flowed 
idl}'' along meandering courses with gentle sloi)e in channels 
little below the surrounding surface ; hut at present the streams, 
and especially the master rivers of the region, have deeply in- 
cised courses inclosed by steep-sided valle3^s. Clearly, then, the 
region has been uplifted since the denudation of the peneplain 
and is now well entered in a second cycle of denudation. The 
meanders developed in the later stages of the previous cycle of 
denudation are inherited in the earl3^ stage of the present C3^1e. 
It is worth noting, however, that there seems to have been a 
pause during the general elevation of the region, for the valley 
of the INIoselle ma3" be described as a narrow, meandering trench 
cut in a wide-open, flat-bottomed trough, the trough being sunk 
well beneath the general surface of the adjacent upland. The 
same sequence of forms may be clearly recognized in the valle3'' 
of the Rhine, particularl3’^ in the neighborhood of Bacharach, 
where the old river alluvium still lies on the floor of the uplifted 
trough, although the existing river trench is sunk several him- 
