Hattcras Axis in Triassic and in Miocene Time. — Glenn. 379 
others that have written on the subject — means not a narrow 
beh with a close approach to the idea of a Hne but rather a 
broader belt or a region. Nor is it conceived, with the exist- 
ence of such a region of stability granted, that its extent was 
always even approximately the same, or that the position 
across this stable area of its line of minimum movement was 
always the same. As compared with this region the portions 
of the coastal plain to the north and to the south are regions 
of major or maximum movement, and as compared with each 
other the amount of the movements in these latter regions has 
certainly at times been unequal. It is conceived, accordingly, 
that during a period of marked subsidence on both the north 
and the south, the area of the stable region would most proba- 
bly be diminished; while during a period of greater movement 
on the north, for example, than on the south, the position 
of the line of minimum movement across the stable region 
would most probably be shifted southward tnd vice versa. 
Attention was first called to the Hatteras axis by Prof. 
Slialer in 1871, who described* an uplift transverse to the 
Carolina coast which he believed had produced the Hatteras 
projection. Hays and Campbellf have shown that the con- 
tours of the deformed Cretaceous peneplain in the central 
southerij Appalachian region swell out on either side suggest- 
ing strongly the existence of a transverse line of uplift that if 
prolonged in both directions would connect the Paleozoic Cin- 
cinnati region of uplift with the Hatteras region, and making it 
a pertinent query whether the Hatteras axis may not have also 
existed in Paleozoic time. Whether this query may ultimate- 
ly be found capable of answer or not, it seems reasonable to 
conclude from the contrast of conditions in the Triassic stated 
above, that the existence of the Hatteras region as one of 
comparative stability may be carried back a step or two far- 
ther than it has heretofore been recognized and may be consid- 
ered as existing as early at least as Triassic time. 
Geological Laboratory , Johns Hopkins University, May, 5, i8gg. 
*0n the Causes which have led to the Production of Cape Hatteras. 
Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xiv, pp. 101-121. 
fGeomorphology of the Southern Appalachians, Nat. Geog. Mag, 
vi, pp. 63-126, 1894. 
