=Folds.=—The erosion of folded strata (anticlines and synclines) leads to the development of distinctive topographic features. So soon as a fold begins to be lifted, it is, by reason of its position, subject to more rapid erosion than its surroundings. For the same reason the crest of the fold is likely to be degraded more rapidly than its lower slopes, and must suffer more degradation before it is brought to base-level. Folds are usually composed of beds of unequal resistance, and as the degradation of a fold proceeds, successive layers are worn from the top, and the alternating hard and soft layers composing it are exposed. So soon as this is accomplished, adjustment of the streams is likely to begin, and the watercourses, and later the valley plains, come to be located on the outcrops of the less resistant layers, while the outcrops of the harder beds become ridges. If the axis of an eroded anticline were horizontal, a given hard layer, the arch of which has been cut off, would, after erosion, outcrop on both sides of the axis. When the topography was mature these outcrops would constitute parallel ridges, or parallel lines of hills; when the region had been base-leveled, the outcrops would be in parallel belts, though no longer ridges or hills. The lower the plane of truncation, the farther apart would the outcrops be in the anticline, and the nearer together in the syncline (compare _ab_ and _cd_, Fig. 133). [Illustration: +Fig.+ 142.—A natural bridge in process of development; longitudinal section at the left; transverse section, looking toward _e_, at the right.]