12 TACONIC PHYSIOGKAPHY. 
Hebron, and Rogers Hill in Granville, whence it passes into Vermont. T 
valley between this and the Taconic Range, which includes the flats and plai 
about the villages of Cambridge, Salem, and Granville, it may safely be aflirme 
is one of the finest agricultural districts in our country. * * * 
3. The Bald Mountain Range, which is more regularly and conspicuous 
marked in this county than is the preceding, extends by way of Baker's, W 
lard's * * * Bald Mountain * * * to the pinnacle near north Gra 
ville, Hatch's Hill, and onward into Vermont. The country between this and tl 
preceding range is elevated and undulated, without any flats or plains * * * 
Dana's studies in Berkshire County were published at interval 
In 1873, referring to the north-south trend of the depression i 
Mount Greylock called the Hopper, he suggested that it probabl 
corresponds in position to an anticline. 6 In 1877 he expressed tr 
opinion that when in the Taconic region the schist belts are broader 
they are not simple but complex synclinals, and that the limestor 
of the valleys was brought to the surface by anticlinals. In anothe 
paper of the same year he added that when the schist rises into hig 
peaks the syncline is broad and relatively shallow. The broad syii 
clines like Mount Everett and Greylock are compound/ 7 In 1871 
Dana explained : 
Limestone being a brittle rock, the region of flexures, whatever the thieknes 
of the overlying mass, would have been profoundly fractured, especially in ant 
clinals ; and being also a soft rock, it would have been easily carried away I 
denuding agencies. The limestone belts are the chief courses, as Percivi 
pointed out, of all the greater valleys and streams of the limestone region ; an 
in these valleys, as I have found, the underdipping side of limestone is geri 
orally the bold, precipitous side, owing to the undermining which it has oecn 
sioned. This is so generally true that vertical fronts in these metaniorph 
regions * * * are pretty sure evidence of outcropping limestone below. c 
In 1887 he wrote : 
The prominent topographical feature of middle and western Berkshire is ir 
intersection in a generally north-south direction by flat-bottomed valleys, lyin 
deep between and sometimes encircling high ridges, while eastern Berkshire : 
part of an elevated plateau — the plateau of the Green Mountains J 
Dana's last reference to the physiography of the region was in th 
same year : 
II 
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nil 
in 
\w 
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le'i 
Ba 
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ft 
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The deep gaps or open valleys that cross the [Taconic] range are deep opei 
ings through the Taconic schists, and hence the outcrop of the limestone throng 
or nearly through the gaps. 
a Fitch, Asa, A historical, topographical, and agricultural survey of the county \\ 
Washington : Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, vol. 7, No. 17i 
Albany, 1850, p. 936. 
6 Dana, James D., Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 6, 1873, p. 273. 
c Ibid., vol. 13, 1877, p. 347. 
" Ibid., vol. 14, pp. 261-264. 
<" Ibid., vol. 13, 1870, p. 387. 
t Berkshire Geology. Read before the Berkshire Historical and Scientific Societji 
March 12, 1886. Republished by that society in the Berkshire Book, vol. 1, PittsiieU 
Mass., 1892. 
