The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 3, July, 1889Various
Science
The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 3, July, 1889
Various
Geography -- Periodicals
independent gap across Tussey's mountain (Medina), although diverted to
the Tyrone or main Juniata (Tn) by Warrior's ridge (Oriskany) just
below. At the time of the early predatory growth of the initial
divertor, N, its course lay by the very conditions of its growth on
only the weakest rocks; but after this little stream had grown to a
good-sized river, further rising of the land, probably in the time of
the Jurassic elevation, allowed the river to sink its channel to a
greater depth, and in doing so, it encountered the hard Medina
anticline of Jack's mountain; here it has since persisted, because, as
we may suppose, there has been no stream able to divert the course of
so large a river from its crossing of a single hard anticlinal.
The doubt that one must feel as to the possibility of the processes
just outlined arises, if I may gauge it by my own feeling, rather from
incredulity than from direct objections. It seems incredible that the
waste of the valley slopes should allow the backward growth of N at
such a rate as to enable it to capture the heads of C, Tn, F, and so
on, before they had cut their beds down close enough to the baselevel
of the time to be safe from capture. But it is difficult to urge
explicit objections against the process or to show its quantitative
insufficiency. It must be remembered that when these adjustments were
going on, the region was one of great altitude, its rocks then had the
same strong contrasts of strength and weakness that are so apparent in
the present relief of the surface and the streams concerned were of
moderate size; less than now, for at the time, the Tyrone, Frankstown
and Bedford head branches of the Juniata had not acquired drainage west
of the great Nittany-Bedford anticlinal axis, but were supplied only by
the rainfall on its eastern slope (see section 39)--and all these
conditions conspired to favor the adjustment. Finally, while apparently
extraordinary and difficult of demonstration, the explanation if
applicable at all certainly gives rational correlation to a number of
peculiar and special stream courses in the upper Juniata district that
are meaningless under any other theory that has come to my notice. It
is chiefly for this reason that I am inclined to accept the
explanation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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