Baseleveling and Organic Evolution. — Woodworth. 211 
From these observations we are led. to conclude that it is possible, if 
not probable, that, in a course of ages, the mountains and sallies may 
be brought nearer to an equality with each oilier: there being, from the 
co-operation of so many causes, a tendency in nature to this end, without 
anything to oppose or counteract it. The only objection thai occurs to 
me is that, in this case, it may lie thought the earth would be in dan- 
ger of'being overflown by the sea: And the possibility of this conse-- 
quence hath been alledged. Bui then' is no such dead level of tin' earth 
supposed, that there would not n( " eminences and inequalities enough 
li'l'i lo keep out the return of the sea. 
In this quotation we find the essential features of two char- 
acteristics of the Jura-Cretaceous peneplain as it occurs in 
North America, — the nearly level surface of the time, and the 
eminences or monadnocks which had resisted with partial suc- 
cess the denuding forces. This same writer continued his dis- 
quisition upon this subject, "suppljnng as little as possible 
from reason, or hypothesis,"* in the fashion of the Mosaic 
writers of his time, tracing to Plutarchf the records of a tra- 
dition, "that the time would come, decreed by fate, when the 
earth would be reduced to an even plain, and mankind should 
all live under one happy policy, and be all of one language." 
The poet Prior, quoted by the same writer,* conceived of the 
leveling of lands and building up of the correlated plain, 
when he says : 
Disparted streams shall from their channels H\ ; 
And deep surcharg'd by sandy mountains lie, 
Obscurely sepulchred. By eating rain, 
And furious winds, down to the distant plain, 
'Pie' hill thai hides his head above the skies, 
Shall fall. The plain by slow degrees shall rise 
Higher than erst had stood the summit-hill: 
For tine' must nature's greal behests fulfill.: 
Views of the British School. 
The first recognition of baseleveled lands is due to the work 
of Sir A. ( '. Ramsay in Wales, and it was there lie formulated 
the conception of their origin by marine erosion. In his ter- 
minology, they are "plains of marine denudation." marking 
great unconformities in the older strata, or givingri&e to the 
even-topped hills of the existing surface. Surrounded on all 
sides by the tidal waters of an active sea, in a region where the 
*Ibid, int roducl ion. p. 12, 
fin [side. 
{Prior's Solomon. Book I. 
