180 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
alone, this elevation continued to go on until after the formation of 
the Liassic rocks of the Richmond coal field which are much dis- 
turbed by the elevation of the syenite ridge to the eastward. — 
While the Appalachians have this comparatively recent outline to — 
the eastward, they have an ancient ridge in a comparable position 
about as far to the westward. The Cincinnati and Nashville 
Silurian domes are only the highest points of a low ridge which 
was elevated on a position parallel to the subsequently created 
Appalachian system. This ridge was elevated as early as the 
period of the Calciferous sand rock. This is proven by the traces 
of beaches and broken shells in beds of the Hudson River Period, > 
and by the existence of great deposits of salt in the Calciferous 
sand rock which could only have been formed when that rock was 
out of water. We have, in this ridge, the first of the folds of the 
Appalachian system, which built continually towards the east 
ward. ? 
The Hatteras projection was due to the elevation of the Rich- 
mond element of the Appalachiahs. The border tertiary rocks 
were thrown up and have resisted:the wearing action about Hat- 
teras. This ridge was possibly of the same age as the Connecti- 
cut River dislocations of the Tom and Holyoke series, and of the 
Martha’s Vineyard series, to which it is approximately parallel, 
‘The history of the Appalachian chain showed that they, 1 
most mountains, tended to grow by successive parallel additions. 
Mountains are characteristically shore phenomena, rarely being a 
g 
Weldon. Its character cannot be explained by the ordinary at 
tions. The topography near the coast is purely submarine, 38 
formed by the action of the sea. Passing inland, the evidences ' 
the action of the atmospheric agents appear. He thought the 
whole of this shore indicated a recent origin, an emergence anda 
slight sinking within the period of man’s remembrance. There 
had been in the most recent geological period a rising and sink- 
ing of the coast, as at Charleston, of fifty or sixty feet; Maine, 
two hundred feet; and greater on the coast of Labrador, as Dr- 
Packard has shown. These alternations of sinking and elevation 
could be- accounted for by supposing that the sea flows in n 
central regions, more constantly sinking the land areas, Tistg 
