362 The American Geologist. June,is<j8 
one may feel distinctly skeptical ; and when this is argued in 
spite of the fact that the land is apparently so unstable, one 
may well demand that evidence of the best and most satisfac- 
tory kind l)e adduced. The instability of the land, both present 
and past, coiubined with the slowness of denudation even in 
distinctly upland regions, and its rapidly increasing slowness 
as these are lowered, appear to be evidence against the pene- 
plain of such strength that only the most convincing proof that 
such plains have really existed can offset it. 
Then the very irregularity of the surface, let us say of 
New England and the neighboring regions, argues against the 
peneplain so strongly that here also convincing proof of the 
peneplain should be necessary to oflfset this. The type feature 
of New England is not the peneplain remnant, but the low 
mountain. It is only in the lower portions, not far removed 
from the sea, that there is any semblance of a dissected pene- 
plain. Much more than one-half of New^ England is dis- 
tinctly mountainous and irregular. There are single isolated 
peaks, isolated groups of peaks, and entire mountain masses. 
Where will one go in the White mountains to find evidence of 
a former plain? or where in northwestern Massachusetts and 
A^ermont, or in the Adirondacks? Last summer I stood upon 
the crests of several of the higher peaks of Maine and looked 
in vain for any series of peaks that even to the eye appeared 
uniform in level. The region is essentially that of mature 
mountains somewhat roughened by recent elevation. Less 
markedly is the same true of the coast of Maine. Mt. Desert, 
Blue hill and many other peaks in that neighborhood contrast 
very strongly with their neighbors, some of which are half 
as high, others a quarter, and still others mere low' hills or 
even reefs in the sea. A model of New England large enough 
to really show the dififerences in elevation would reveal a very 
irregular surface, not merely where incised by valleys cut dur- 
ing the Tertiary uplift, but among those uplands which should 
represent the ancient peneplain. Unless the evidence of the 
New England peneplain is of the very strongest kind, this 
irregularity would seem to stand forth in positive testimony 
against the belief in the former reduction of this region to any- 
thing approaching a plain. To attempt to account for this by-^ 
exceptional conditions seems an admission of a weakness in 
the explanation. 
