INVENTING A TERM 117 



But the serious side of our fun was that the term served its purpose ; 

 it saved time in our discussions and saved space in our note books ; but it 

 may now be supplanted by a more satisfactory term, to wit, morvan, the 

 name of the northeastern extension of the central highland of France, 

 which is, as already mentioned, an excellent example of the skiou kind. 

 True, the French Morvan, from which the covering strata dip very gently 

 to the north, is limited on the east and west by faults, and hence its exten- 

 sion along the strike of the covering strata is of moderate measure ; but 

 this will be regarded as an individual feature ; other morvans may have a 

 greater extension and may be terminated in other ways. Like meander 

 and monadnock, morvan may be written with a small m, to indicate its 

 generic value, and it may be pronounced by us in plain English fashion, 

 like Paris and France. 



MORVANS OF DIFFERENT KINDS 



A few days' exercise on morvans will suffice to form acquaintance with 

 many imaginary examples, each one possibly the counterpart of an actual 

 region. Such exercise enriches the mental equipment of a geographer by 

 providing him with various sorts of .morvans; one, for instance, may be 

 imagined in which the undermass consists of deformed and resistant crys- 

 talline rocks ; the first planation was perfectly accomplished, the covering 

 strata possessed abundant thickness and variable resistance, the lowest 

 member being weak; then the uplift tilted the double mass to the north 

 at a small angle; the second planation was less complete than the first, 

 the broad uplift which introduced the present cycle was of moderate 

 measure, and the stage of erosion now reached is early mature in the 

 resistant undermass, and late mature in the covering strata to the north, 

 on which a series of alternating cuestas and lowlands are now developed 

 along the strike of the stronger and weaker members. Now, if the cover- 

 ing strata are imagined as faulted down on the east and west at the time 

 of the gentle northward tilting, such a morvan would fairly represent the 

 original morvan itself. 



Another example might retain a considerable relief when de])ressi()n 

 and burial occurred, and might be given a moderately strong tilting to 

 the east, north, and south when uplift took place; it might then be for the 

 most part well worn down, yet retain a number of smaller and larger 

 monadnocks on its hardest rocks; it might next be broadly uplifted and, 

 in the cycle thus introduced, the resistant undermass of disordered crys-. 

 tallines might be maturely dissected while the weak lower members of the 

 covering strata were reduced to a new lowland, and this example would 

 theii represent the uplands of Devonshire near their eastern border. If to 



