228 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
valleys are connected by narrow gorges. Abrupt escarpments 
form one side of the lateral valleys and long back- slopes the 
other. A series of gigantic steps are formed. The idea is best 
expressed by a cross-section (figure 4), which is a diagrammatic 
one, of the same region in which the photograph was taken. 
A 
In this country we have some excellent examples of this type 
of topography. Besides the great areas in southwest United 
States, the Black Hills and Ozarks furnish excellent examples, 
but they are all on such a large scale that the camera cannot 
satisfactorily reproduce them. Nowhere in this country is it 
depicted so beautifully as in the region photographed. The 
photograph was taken from the crest of one of the lofty escarp- 
ments, just outside of the southern gates of the ancient city of 
Chufut Kaleh, formerly occupied by the Karaim Jews, but long 
since deserted and now in ruins. This point is about five miles 
from Bakhchisarai, 300 years ago the capital of the Tartar 
Khans, and about forty miles from Sevastopol. The resistant 
numbers of the couplets forming the escarpments are chalky 
limestones of Cretaceous age. To the north they are covered 
by Tertiary deposits. 
In Iowa we have traces of an excellent illustration of Cuesta 
topography, in the area occupied by the upper coal measures of 
the southwestern part of the state. It is best shown, perhaps, 
in Madison county. Elsewhere it is’greatly obscured by heavy 
drift deposits, which almost completely bury the highest escarp- 
ments. Only here and there do the latter peep out through 
the glacial debris. The broad, intervening valleys that once 
existed are filled by surface deposits to a depth often of 200 
feet. 
