MOUNTAIN SCULPTURE. 



267 



and beautiful forms of mountain scenery are due to erosive sculpturing. 

 The amount carried away is always enormously great, usually many times 

 greater than what remains. In Fig. 227 (p. 255) we have in the upper 

 part the Uintah Mountain with its strata restored, i. e., as it would be 

 if never ravaged by erosion ; in the lower part we have it as it now ex- 

 ists. The extreme thickness removed is about 25,000 feet, while only 

 about 8,000 feet remain, for the highest peaks are now only 10,000 to 

 12,000 feet high. In the Appalachian — an older mountain — probably 

 a much larger proportion has been carried away. The amount in all 

 cases is so great as to obscure the origin of mountains and to confuse 

 the use of the term mountain. Hence some have divided mountains into 

 two kinds, viz., mountains of upheaval and mountains of erosion, and 

 some have even gone so far as to say that mountains are mere remnants 

 of denuded continents — the prominent points of a differential erosion. 

 But it is best to keep distinct in the mind mountain formation and 

 mountain sculpture. They are both equally important in the final 

 result. If igneous forces do the rough hewing, aqueous forces do the 

 shaping into forms of beauty. When we view mountains from a dis- 

 tance, the blue, cloud-like bank which we see on the horizon is the 

 result of igneous agencies ; but, when we are among mountains, all that 

 we see — every ridge and peak and valley — all that constitutes scenery — 

 is the result of aqueous agencies. 



Sculptural Forms. — The mode of mountain formation is more or 

 less concealed in internal structure ; but the forms developed by sculpt- 

 ure lie on the surface, and are easily understood, and yet they often 

 reveal structure to the careful observer. A knowledge of these sculpt- 

 ural forms gives additional charm to mountain travel. They are al- 

 most infinitely diversified; yet a few of the most common and con- 

 spicuous may be given as examples. These forms are not all confined 

 to mountains ; some of them are the general forms of highland erosion ; 

 but they are most conspicuous in mountain-regions. 



Fig. 233. 



1. Horizontal Strata. — (a.) These, if sufficiently firm, give rise to 

 table-forms, the top of the table being determined by a slab of hard 



Fig. 234.— Section across Cumberland Plateau and Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. 



