428 J. D. Dana—Results of the Earth's Contraction. 
Prof. LeConte makes the elevation of mountains real, but, 
have a larger place than his words seem to give it (in all plica- 
tion the rocks over a region being pressed into a narrower space, 
which could be done only by adding to the height), as it has 
performed ten-fold more work of this kind than crushing. _ 
ut are plication and crushing the only methods of producing, 
under lateral pressure, the actual elevations of mountain re- 
gions? Is there not real elevation besides ? 
In the later part of the Post-tertiary or Quaternary era, the 
region about  seethioat was raised nearly 500 feet, as shown bj 
the existence of sea-beaches at that height; and similiar evl- 
dence proves that the region about Lake Champlain was raised 
at the same time at least 300 feet, and the coast of Maine 150 
to 200 feet. Hence the region raised was large. No crushing 
or plication of the upper rocks occurred, and none in the under 
rocks could well have taken place without exhibitions at sur 
face; and this cause, therefore, cannot account for the elevation. 
The elevated sea-border deposits of the region are in general 
horizontaJ. This example is to the point as much as if a mount 
ain had been made by the elevation. 
But we have another example on a mountain scale, and one 
of many. Fossiliferous beds over the higher regions of the 
Rocky mountains are unquestioned evidence that a large part 
of this chain has been raised 8,000 to 10,000 feet above the ocean 
level since the Cretaceous era.* The Cretaceous rocks, to which 
these fossiliferous beds belong, were upturned in the course of 
the slowly progressing elevation, and so also were part of the 
Tertiary beds—for the elevation went forward through the 
larger part, or all, of the Tertiary era. But the local crushing 
or plication of these beds cannot account for the elevation, and 
n 
* The height of the Cretaceous (stratum No. 2 of the Upper Missouri er 
ous) at Aspen, in Wyoming, is full 8,000 feet above tide level (Meek). 
occur also in South Park, Colorado, the height of which is 8500 feet; and, ; 
ing to Hayden, in the region of the Wind River Mountains, the beds have a heigh 
Of 10,000 to 11,000 feet above the sea. 
