Gregory — Progress in Interpretation of Land Forms. 107 



resistance, could have opened or kept up a communication 

 between the inequalities of an irregular and alpine surface . . . 



. . . The probability of such a constitution [arrangement of 

 valleys] having arisen from another cause, is, to the probability 

 of its having arisen from the running of water, in such a pro- 

 portion as unity bears to a number infinitely great. 



. . . With Dr. Hutton, we shall be disposed to consider those 

 great chains of mountains, which traverse the surface of the 

 globe, as cut out of masses vastly greater, and more lofty than 

 any thing that now remains. 



From this gradual change of lakes into rivers, it follows, that 

 a lake is but a temporary and accidental condition of a river, 

 which is every day approaching to its termination ; and the 

 truth of this is attested, not only by the lakes that have existed, 

 but also by those that continue to exist. ' ' 



Steps Backward. 



Even Hutton 's clear reasoning, firmly buttressed by 

 concrete examples, was insufficient to overcome the belief 

 in ready-made or violently formed valleys and original 

 corrugations and irregularities of mountain surface 

 The pages of the Journal show that the principles laid 

 down by Playf air were too far in advance of the times to 

 secure general acceptance. In the first volume of the 

 Journal, the gorge of the French Broad River is assigned 

 by Kain to "some dreadful commotion in nature which 

 probably shook these mountains to their bases," 4 and 

 the gorge of the lower Connecticut is considered by 

 Hitchcock (1824) 5 as a breach which drained a series of 

 lakes "not many centuries before the settlement of this 

 country." The prevailing American and English view 7 

 for the first quarter of the 19th century is expressed in 

 the reviews in this Journal, where the -well-known 

 conclusions of Conybeare and Phillips that streams are 

 incompetent to excavate valleys are quoted with approval 

 and admiration is expressed for Buckland 's famous 

 ' ' Reliquiae Diluvianse, ' ' a 300-page quarto volume devoted 

 to proof of a deluge. The professor at Yale, Silliman, 

 and the professor at Oxford, Buckland, saw that an 

 acceptance of Hutton 's views involved a repudiation of 

 the Biblical flood, and much space is devoted to combating 

 these ' ' erroneous ' ' and ' ' unscientific ' ' views. For exam- 

 ple, Buckland says : 6 



"... The general belief is, that existing streams, avalanches 

 and lakes, bursting their barriers, are sufficient to account for 



