The physical geography of New York state (1902) (14776485994)

Identifier: physicalgeograph00tarr (find matches)
Title: The physical geography of New York state
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Tarr, Ralph S. (Ralph Stockman), 1864-1912 Turner, E. T. (Ebenezer Tousey)
Subjects: Physical geography -- New York (State) Glacial epoch Great Lakes (North America) New York (State) -- Climate New York (State) -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : The Macmillan company London, Macmillan & co., ltd.
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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was reduced to the condi-tion of a peneplain. The evidence of this reduction tosuch moderate outline that mountains lost their mountainruggedness, is very strong indeed, and the leveling seemsto have been widespread. This being so, it must havereached the neighboring Adirondacks. So the Adirondacksare mountains of a new cycle. After a complex history,some of which has been stated, they were reduced to farless relief than now and perhaps nearly leveled. This wasin the Tertiary period. Then they, together with the sur-rounding country, were uplifted again, and once morebrought under the influence of mountain denudation. Atpresent they are well along in development in this newcycle, having again reached the outline of maturity. Per-haps such changes have been passed through again andagain during the history of these mountains. The Adirondacks have been contrasted with the Alps;they may also be brought into contrast with the Appa-lachians, which, likewise, are not strictly comparable with
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(48) The Mountain* of the State 49 the Alps or Rockies. It is not difficult to ascend to thetop of any ridge in the Appalachians, so that in thisrespect there is a resemblance to the Adirondacks; but ifwe examine these two sets of rounded and easily traversedmountains, we see some fundamental differences. TheAppalachians are made up typically of ridges (page 59),while the Adirondacks are typically isolated peaks orgroups of peaks. These differences are directly traceableto the rock structure. Denudation employs delicate toolsin the sculpturing of the earth, and in the course of itswork it detects differences in rock hardness with wonder-ful precision. The weak or soft layers have sufferedgreatly, while the durable or hard rocks have better with-stood the action of the tools. Consequently hard strata areetched out in relief as the soft ones are cut more deeply. The Appalachian rocks are sheets of sediment, variablein hardness and folded into waves, as we might fold thepages of this boo