of the Catskill Mountains. 443 
The contrast of the broad open valleys between the moun- 
tain chains above described, and the narrow and deep cut of 
the Schoharie Creek when passing through the plateau region 
is a feature to be noted. 
his drainage which sends the waters of the Catskills all the 
way around to the Mohawk to come back by the Hudson, after 
ter of anticlinal axes of elevation, nor are the valleys synclinal 
folds. These orographic features therefore are not due to the 
ordinary dynamic process which has folded and shaped into 
southwest and northeast mountain ranges, the other portions of 
the Appalachian system, and do not constitute an exception to 
the rule. The idea of a series of axes of elevation, the princi- 
pal of which is prolonged on the northwest to Little Falls, on 
the Mohawk, sad is often represented as connecting the Cats- 
kills with the southern chains of the Adirondacks, has thus no 
foundation whatever in nature. The nearly continuous heights, 
up to 2000 feet and more, which form the water-shed between 
the Schoharie Creek, the Mohawk and the various branches of 
the Susquehanna are but the swelled border of the plateaus 
falling rather abruptly into the Mohawk valley. e may, 
therefore, conceive the original form of the Catskills to have 
been that of a high plateau, a mass elevation, forming a part o 
the Appalachian plateau region which extends west of the 
Alleghanies from South Virginia, and fills nearly all the west- 
ern portion of the State of New York, south of Lake Ontario 
and the Mohawk River. The lowest altitude of the primitive 
plateau is marked by the ideal plane which would pass 
through the mountain tops, and its superior elevation on the 
east would account for the flow of the waters, the gradual 
scooping out and the sloping of the valleys in the direction 
