THE FRIENDLY ROCKS 
the original plateau out of which the mountains 
were carved was first lifted up in Paleozoic times, 
when the earth was in her teens. The indications 
are that on some quiet day the peaceful waters 
became suddenly charged with new material and 
the streams or rivers from some unknown land 
in the vicinity poured it into the old Devonian 
lakes where it hardened into rock. The changes 
indicated by these streaks of soft red sandstone 
suddenly alternating with the hard laminated Cat- 
skill formation, well up the mountain-sides, with 
a sharp dividing line between them, occurred many 
times during the Devonian Age. During one geo- 
logic day the earth-building forces brought one 
kind of material, and the next day material of 
quite another kind, and this alternation without 
any change of character seems to have kept up 
for millions of years. How curious, how interest- 
ing! Both from near-by land surfaces, and yet so 
different from each other! How difficult to form 
any mental picture of the condition of things in 
those remote geologic ages! It is as if one day 
it had snowed something like brick-dust to a 
depth of many feet, and the next day it had 
snowed a dark-gray dust of an entirely different 
character, and that this alternation of storms had 
kept up for ages. Long before we reach the tops 
of the mountains, or at about a thousand feet 
above the river valley, the red soft strata cease, 
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