230 
THE SEINE, THE MEUSE, AND THE MOSELLE 
lime of tlie Toul to the formerly small volume of the Pompe}% 
tlie valley has been distinctly deepened both down and iii)- 
stream from the elbow of capture below the former level of the 
streams and now exhibits the steep-sided trench characteristic 
of recent captures. Not only the diverted Toul but several of 
its l)ranches above the elbow of capture have intrenched them- 
selves beneath the "eneral level of the open valley-plain of lower 
oblite strata on which they formerly flowed. On restoring the 
surface of this old valle}' floor by filling up the trenches which 
now dissect it, it may he seen to slope at such a grade as would 
lead it to the floor of the meandering valley on the wa}" to the 
Meuse. Immediately after the division of the Toul we may 
imagine that only a small stream — the Pagny — fed by the drain- 
age from the valley slopes, was left to follow the meandering 
valley to Meuse. This would be the diminished, beheaded 
stream of our terminology. But in conseciuence of the develop- 
ment of the dee() trench at the elbow of capture and the accom- 
})anving growth of the obsequent stream — the Ingressin — the 
l)eheaded Pagny has been still further shortened and is now not 
more than two and one-half miles in length.* 
The Pacpiy and the Ingressin. — I^et me here turn a moment from 
the main subject to consider some special features of the me- 
andering valley and its })resent occui>ants, the Pagny and the 
Ingressin. In the first place, midway in the valley, at the village 
of Foug, there is a little stream coming in from the Bois Romont 
on the north. The topograjdiic details of the district give good 
reason for thinking that this little stream used to join the valley 
at Lay-St.-Remy on the next meander to the west, and thus we 
have here a repetition of an accident of the Ste. Austreberte 
type. Mdien the vigorous Toul was running through this valley 
and widening its meander belt it must have pushed its swinging 
current so vigorously against the outer side of its curves that it 
cut through the ridge separating the Foug meander from the 
little stream on the north, and thus changed the mouth of its 
own tributary from a lower to an upi)er meander. .This mai" be 
added to the evidence indicating the former passage of a large 
river through the meandering valle^^ 
Next as to the obsequent Ingressin, whose head is at least si.x 
*Tlie following altitudes are significant : 
Junction of the Meurtlie and the Moselle at Pompey, about 190 m. 
Elbow of capture at Toul, 204 m. 
Old valley floor at elbow of capture, about 255 m. 
Divide between Ingressin and Pagny, 265 m. 
Junction of the Pagny and the Meuse, 245 m. 
