Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/277

 method thus indicated and attempt to trace out the history of a completely original, consequent system of drainage accordant with the growth of the central mountain district.

In doing this, it is first necessary to restore the constructional topography of the region; that is, the form that the surface would have had if no erosion had accompanied its deformation. This involves certain postulates which must be clearly conceived if any measure of confidence is to be gained in the results based upon them.

24. Postulates of the argument.—In the first place, I assume an essential constancy in the thickness of the paleozoic sediments over the entire area in question. This is warranted here because the known variations of thickness are relatively of a second order, and will not affect the distribution of high and low ground as produced by the intense Permian folding. The reasons for maintaining that the whole series had a considerable extension southeast of the present margin of the Medina sandstone have already been presented.

In the second place, I shall assume that the dips and folds of the beds now exposed at the surface of the ground may be projected upwards into the air in order to restore the form of the eroded beds. This is certainly inadmissible in detail, for it cannot be assumed that the folded slates and limestones of the Nittany valley, for instance, give any close indication of the form that the coal measures would have taken, had they extended over this district, unworn. But in a general way, the Nittany massif was a complex arch in the coal measures as well as in the Cambrian beds; for our purpose and in view of the moderate relief of the existing topography, it suffices to say that wherever the lower rocks are now revealed in anticlinal structure, there was a great upfolding and elevation of the original surface; and wherever the higher rocks are still preserved, there was a relatively small elevation.

In the third place, I assume that by reconstructing from the completed folds the form which the country would have had if unworn, we gain a sufficiently definite picture of the form through which it actually passed at the time of initial and progressive folding. The difference between the form of the folds completely restored and the form that the surface actually reached is rather one of degree than of kind; the two must correspond in the general distribution of high and low ground and this is the