1889.] 
419 
[Davis and Wood. 
deflection in the depression that accompanied the fall-line disloca- 
tion, and has shown that similar deflections characterize other riv- 
ers when they reach this important structural line. 1 This large 
river might easily have overcome the difficulties presented by the 
elevation of the southeastern part of the Central plain and have 
persevered against them, as the Raritan did ; but it was led astray 
by the temptation offered in the depressed belt along the south- 
west, and thus New Jersey gained greatly in area if not in wealth. 
The deformation by which the Delaware and other large rivers 
were deflected was presumably greater and more rapid than that 
which the Millstone overcame. 
Many streams of moderate size that enter the Delaware below 
Trenton from the southeast seem to have gained their present 
courses at the same time with the deflection of the Delaware, and 
with the reversal of the Millstone. The divide between many of 
these and the Atlantic streams is at present southeast of the out- 
crop of the more resistant Cretaceous beds ; most of the Delaware 
streams have relatively short courses in sharply cut valleys to the 
Delaware, while the Atlantic streams have long gentle slopes in 
flat swampy valleys to the sea. The Rancocas is the chief excep- 
tion to this statement. In such cases of headwater opposition of 
streams, there is practically no record of any migration of the di- 
vide that may have taken place toward the flatter slope. 
37. /Shifting of divides in the Millstone cycle. The adjustment 
of stream courses, and particularly the establishment of stable di- 
vides that was undertaken within the Watchung areas during the 
Somerville cycle, is still continued in the Millstone cycle. There 
is still possibility of the diversion of the upper North Branch of 
the Raritan to the limestone valley that it now traverses, or of the 
upper Lockatong to the little stream that may lead its head- 
waters to the Delaware along the strike of the beds that it now 
crosses. In addition to these, there are certain adjustments of 
drainage lines dependent on the conditions of the Millstone cycle 
alone. The most distinct of these are in the debatable area be- 
tween the eastern branches of the upper Millstone and the branches 
of the Manalapan near and above Jamesburg. It is highly probable 
that some captures have been already made here ; for there are sev- 
eral depressions in the prolonged lines of streams that have no expla- 
nation either in the structure or in the present drainage of the coun- 
1 Seventh A.nn. Rep., U. S. Geol. Survey, 1888, 616. 
