Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/585

Rh not a view of a single chain, but takes the eastern end of the border chains and the short range bearing the High Peak, which rises between the two. The Catskills do not present prominent examples of anticlinal and synclinal folds or arches, or fragments of arches, as in ordinary mountain-chains, but are masses of piled-up strata, seldom deviating notably from their original horizontal position. On account of this disposition of the strata, and their tendency to break at right angles to the planes of stratification, they are marked by the frequent abrupt ledges which are peculiar to them. For the same reason, the tops of the mountains are not pointed peaks, but are mostly flat surfaces, often of considerable extent. The central chain is the longest and most massive of the series, and is the backbone of the whole Catskill region. From Overlook Mountain to the Utsyantha, near Stamford, it is a little more than thirty-five miles long, and is divided into four almost equal parts by three deep gorges or cloves. The heights increase regularly from the Overlook to Hunter Mountain, one quarter of the way back, which, 4,038 feet high, is the highest point of the northern Catskills, overtopping High Peak, which has borne that name, by nearly four hundred feet. From this point the heights diminish to the Utsyantha, at the western end of the chain, whose height, 3,205 feet, is not greatly different from that of Overlook, 3,150 feet. The High Peak range, which is sandwiched between this range and the northern range, is only six miles long, and is distinguished by its High Peak, 3,664 feet high. The northeast border chain begins at South Mountain, near the Catskill Mountain House, which is 2,497 feet high, culminates at Black Dome, 4,003 feet high, and ends at Leonard Hill, 2,649 feet high, showing a similar rapid rise for a quarter of the distance, and a gradual fall toward the western end with the central range. The highland between these two chains, an irregular parallelogram twenty-seven miles long and from six to fifteen miles wide, is filled by three ranges, which are separated by valleys in which flow the tributaries of Schoharie Creek. This stream and its tributaries furnish the entire drainage for the interior highlands of the Catskills proper. The streams that run directly to the Hudson draw no water from the interior, but belong properly to the outside slopes. This drainage, which sends the waters of the Catskills all the way around to the Mohawk to come back by the Hudson, after a course of one hundred and seventy-five miles, to within ten miles of their starting-point, is certainly remarkable, and betokens a very peculiar physical structure. This is made more striking by the fact that on both sides of these highlands the waters of the valleys of the Catskill and Esopus Creeks flow, as we might have expected, from the western plateaus directly to the Hudson River. The nearly horizontal position of the strata, which is common to the mountains and the surrounding plateau, and the peculiar features of the drainage, lead to the inference that the plastic forms of the Catskill region are the work of erosive forces, and are not due to the ordinary dynamic process which has folded and shaped the other parts of the Appalachian system. "We may, therefore, conceive the original form of the Catskills to have been that of a high plateau, a mass of elevations forming a part of the Appalachian plateau region which extends west of the Alleghanies from south Virginia, and fills nearly all the western portion of the State of New York south of Lake Ontario and the Mohawk River. The lowest altitude of the primitive plateau is marked by the ideal plane which would pass through the mountain-tops, and its superior elevation on the east would account for the flow of the waters, the gradual scooping out and the sloping of the valleys in the direction they now have." The southern Catskills have not the regular features which characterize the northern group; the boundaries are not well defined, except along the Esopus Valley; and, instead of their having an interior plateau inclosed by high border chains, the massive central chain, which bears the highest summit, is accessible from all the surrounding valleys without crossing any high pass. Their general direction is about the same as that of the northern Catskills, but several important ridges run at right angles to this direction, and impart considerable physical irregularity to their structure. The Slide Mountain, the culminating point of this group, is the highest of