The Geographic Development of Northern New Jersey (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ...long, continuous ridges of even height, whose value in restoring the Schooley plain has been recognized. In the Cretaceous portion of the Central plain, even a greater share of the beds are soft enough to have been worn down to baselevel; and the only parts that have withstood this reduction are certain loosely cemented conglomerates and sandstones, associated with the green sands, which still seem to stand above the general level of the plain that surrounds them. They appear in a range of disconnected hills from Navesink southwestward; Pine Hill near Perrineville, at the head of the Millstone river, is of this class. It is in a country of remnants like these, especially when the region is complicated by the erosion of a later cycle still, that we find the greatest difficulty in tracing out ancient plains of denudation, and hence the restoration of the Somerville plain in the southeastern part of the state is at present uncertain. Inasmuch as the above mentioned Cretaceous hills remain on the seaward part of this plain, and as it extends with about as much distinctness back of Rocky Hill and Sourland mountain as in front of them, we have concluded that it is a product of subaerial and not of submarine erosion. 23. Date of the Somerville cycle. The Central plain is manifestly of younger date than the Schooley plain, for the former is excavated below the surface of the latter. Baselevelling has been accomplished at the Somerville level only on the softest rocks. The Highlands were subjected to erosion during the same period and yet were only channelled by deep valleys with strong sloping sides; but the soft Cretaceous and Triassic beds were less successful in resisting erosion and hence were reduced so low as to form broadopen lowlands, ..