Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/699

Rh of the sea; the line of separation, the record of a long time when the region was dry land. The events in the history of this intervening time, the period of dry land, one might suppose were all lost. What plants lived here, we cannot learn; what animals roamed over the hills, we know not; and yet there is a history which is not lost, for we find that after these beds were formed as sediments beneath the sea, and still after they had been folded, and the sea had left them, and the rains had fallen on the country long enough to carry out 10,000 feet of rocks, the extension of these beds to the south, which were cut away, and yet before the overlying Carboniferous rocks were formed as sediments of sand and triturated coral-reefs, and ground shells and pulverized bones, some interesting events occurred, the records of which are well preserved. This region of country was fissured, and the rocks displaced so as to form faults, and through the fissures floods of lava were poured, which, on cooling, formed beds of trap or greenstone. This greenstone was doubtless poured out on the dry land, for it bears evidence of being eroded by rains and streams prior to the deposition of the overlying rocks.

Let us go down again, and examine the junction between these red rocks, with their intrusive dikes and overlying beds of greenstone, and the crystalline schists below.

We find these lower rocks to be composed chiefly of metamorphosed sandstones and shales, which have been folded so many times, squeezed, and heated, that their original structure, as sandstones and shales, is greatly obscured, or entirely destroyed, so that they are called metamorphic crystalline schists.

Dame Nature kneaded this batch of dough very thoroughly. After these beds were deposited, after they were folded, and still after they were deeply eroded, they were fractured, and through the fissures came floods of molten granite, which now stands in dikes, or lies in beds, and the metamorphosed sandstones and shales, and the beds of granite, present evidences of erosion subsequent to the periods just mentioned, yet antecedent to the deposition of the non-conformable sandstones.

Here, then, we have evidences of another and more ancient period of erosion, or dry land. Three times has this great region been left high and dry by the ever-shifting sea; three times have the rocks been fractured and faulted; three times have floods of lava been poured up through the crevices; and three times have the clouds gathered over the rocks, and carved out valleys with their storms. The first time was after the deposition of the schists; the second was after the deposition of the red sandstones; the third time is the present time. The plateaus and mountains of the first and second periods have been destroyed or buried; their eventful history is lost; the rivers that ran into the sea are dead, and their waters are now rolling as tides, or coursing in other channels. Were there cañons then? I