The influence of structure in the formation of valleys is emphasized by many contributors to the Journal. Hildreth in 1836, in a valuable paper,[15] which is perhaps the first detailed topographic description of drainage in folded strata, expresses the opinion that the West Virginia ridges and valleys antedated the streams and that water gaps though cut by rivers involve pre-existing lakes. Geddes (1826)[16] denied that Niagara River cut its channel and speaks of valleys which “were valleys e’er moving spirit bade the waters flow.” Conrad (1839)[17] discussed the structural control of the Mohawk, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, and Lieutenant Warren (1859)[18] concluded that the Niobrara must have originated in a fissure. According to Lesley (1862)[19] the course of the New River across the Great Valley and into the Appalachians “striking the escarpment in the face” is determined by the junction of anticlinal structures on the north with faulted monoclines toward the south; a conclusion in harmony with the views of Edward Hitchcock (1841)[17] that major valleys and mountain passes are structural in origin and that even subordinate folds and faults may determine minor features. “Is not this a beautiful example of prospective benevolence on the part of the Deity, thus, by means of a violent fracture of primary mountains, to provide for easy intercommunication through alpine regions, countless ages afterwards!” The extent of the wandering from the guidance of DeSaussure and Playfair after the lapse of 50 years is shown by students of Switzerland. Alpine valleys to Murchison (1851) were bays of an ancient sea; Schlaginweit (1852) found regional and local complicated crustal movements a satisfactory cause, and Forbes (1863) saw only glaciers. _Valleys Formed by Rivers._ One strong voice before 1860 appears to have called Americans back to truths expounded by Desmarest and Hutton. Dana in 1850[20] amply demonstrated that valleys on the Pacific Islands owe neither their origin, position or form to the sea or to structural factors. They are the work of existing streams which have eaten their way headwards. Even the valleys of Australia cited by Darwin as type examples of ocean work are shown to be products of normal stream work. Dana went further and gave a permanent place to the Huttonian idea that many bays, inlets, and fiords are but the drowned mouths of stream-made valleys. In the same volume in which these conclusions appeared, Hubbard (1850)[21] announced that in New Hampshire the “deepest valleys are but valleys of erosion.” The theory that valleys are excavated by streams which occupy them was all but universally accepted after F. V. Hayden’s description[22] of Rocky Mountain gorges (1862) and Newberry’s interpretation of the canyons of Arizona (1862); but the scientific world was poorly prepared for Newberry’s statement:[23]