Davis and Wood.] 
408 
[Nov. 20, 
called the Pequannock, Pompton and lower Passaic, with the Wan- 
aque and Ramapo as branches, of revived origin in and near the 
Highlands, but superimposed farther east. The Rockaway-Rahway, 
BB , was another stream of the same kind, draining across the mid- 
dle of the Watehung crescent. The headwaters of the present Pas- 
saic perhaps constituted the upper portion of a third stream, (7(7, 
that found its lower part somewhere about Plainfield. All these 
streams flowed across the buried Triassic area upon its Cretaceous 
cover. Of the three named, the first has certainly now and prob- 
ably then had the largest drainage basin, and the last had the small- 
est. The first would therefore, other things being equal, excel the 
other two in the rate of channel cutting, and thus would find op- 
portunity to capture their headwaters at some point above any hard 
reef that they might encounter. The record of an early capture of 
this kind is seen in the Notch in the First mountain, just south of 
Paterson, now followed by the New York and Greenwood lake 
railroad. We cannot say what were the headwaters of the stream 
that once flowed here, but it is tolerably evident that after it had 
accomplished a good beginning towards cutting down a water gap, 
its headwaters were led away by the more successful river, which 
thereby became all the more able to compete with the remaining 
streams. Every time that the river thus captures the headwaters 
of its neighbor, it gains strength to acquire other headwaters ; and 
we must therefore regard river capture of this kind as one of the 
normal lines of progress in river development. Possibly the Pe- 
quannock and Wanaque at first had independent courses across the 
trap ridges, and joined forces by one capturing the other, thus form- 
ing the Pompton ; the Pompton then still further deepened the gap 
at Paterson ; its side streams pushed away the lateral divides more 
rapidly than before, and thus the Rockaway was caught and led to 
the larger stream at E. It must be noticed that at this time the 
original Rockaway, BB, did not leave the Highlands at Roonton, 
M, but by the now drift-filled valley, L , farther south, whence we 
supposed it crossed the sandstone basin towards Summit, where 
its gaps were cut across the two trap ridges ; thence forward it con- 
tinued as the Rahway. It was probably tapped midway on its 
course, as at F , by a branch of the Pompton ; the divide between 
the diverted and beheaded parts of the once continuous river slowly 
migrated eastward, until it took a stable position on the trap sheet 
of Second mountain ; the water gap in this ridge thus became a wind 
