Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/309

 ture to mature courses in the several cycles of development are so numerous and extensive that, as Löwl truly says, the initial drainage has almost disappeared. The larger westward-flowing streams of the plateau are of earlier, Carboniferous birth, and have suffered little subsequent change beyond a loss of headwaters. The lower courses of the Atlantic rivers are younger, having been much shifted from their Permian or pre-Permian courses by Newark and Cretaceous superimposition, as well as by recent downward deformation of the surface in their existing estuaries. No recognizable remnant of rivers antecedent to the Permian deformation are found in the central part of the State; and with the exception of parts of the upper Schuylkill and of the Susquehanna near Wilkes-Barre, there are no large survivors of Permian consequent streams in the ordinary meaning of the term "consequent." The shifting of courses in the progress of mature adjustment has had more to do with determining the actual location of our rivers and streams than any other process.

Harvard College, June, 1889.