country of southern Oregon, as compared with the more advanced forms of the Basin ranges, is a case in hand. The Triassic formation of the Connecticut valley is in some ways of similar structure, being broken by long parallel faults into narrow blocks or slabs, every block being tilted from its original position. Russell's description of the blocks in southern Oregon would apply nicely to those in Connecticut, except that the former have diverse displacements, while the latter all dip one way; but the Connecticut individual has, I feel confident, passed through one cycle of life and has entered well on a second; it has once been worn down nearly to base level since it was broken and faulted, and subsequent elevation at a rather remote period has allowed good advance in a repetition of this process. The general uniformity in the height of its trap ridges and their strong relief above the present broad valley bottom, require us to suppose this complexity of history. A given structure may therefore pass through two or more successive cycles of life, and before considering the resulting composite history in its entirety, it would be best to examine cases of simple development in a single cycle. After this is accomplished, it would be possible to recognize the incomplete partial cycles through which a structure has passed, and to refer every detail of form to the cycle in which it was produced.

The most elementary example that may be chosen to illustrate a simple cycle of geographic life is that of a plain, elevated to a moderate height above its base level. The case has already been referred to here and is given in more detail in an article printed in the proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for 1884, to which I would now refer. When the succession of forms there described as developed at a given elevation over base level is clearly perceived, the occurrence of forms dependent on two different base levels in a single region can easily be recognized. The most striking example of such a complex case that I know of is that of the high plateaus of Utah, as described by Dutton. Northern New Jersey presents another example less striking but no less valuable: the general upland surface of the Highlands is an old base level, in which valleys have been cut in consequence of a subsequent elevation. The plateau developed on the tilted Triassic beds about Bound Brook is a second base level, cut during a halt in the rise from the previous lower stand of the land to its present elevation. There is a parable that illustrates the principle here presented.

An antiquary enters a studio and finds a sculptor at work on a marble statue. The design is as yet hardly perceptible in the rough cut block, from which the chisel strikes off large chips at every blow; but on looking closer the antiquary discovers that the block itself is an old torso, broken and weather beaten, and at once his imagination runs back through its earlier history. This is not the first time that the marble has lain on a sculptor's table, and suffered the strong blows of the first rough shaping. Long ago it was chipped and cut and polished into shape, and perhaps even set up in its completed form in some garden, but then it was neglected and badly used, thrown over and broken, till its perfect shape was lost, and it was sold for nothing more than a marble block, to be carved over again if the sculptor sees fit. Now it just beginning its second career. We may find many parallels to this story in the land about us, when we study its history through its form. The sequence of events and consequently of forms is so apparent here that no one could have difficulty in interpreting history from form, and it shall come to be the same in geography. The gorge of the Wissahickon through the highland northwest of Philadelphia can have no other interpretation than one that likens it to the first quick work of the sculptor on the old torso.

An essential as well as an advantage in this extension of the study of geography will be the definition of types and terms, both chosen in accordance with a rational and if possible a natural system of classification. Types and terms are both already introduced into geographic study, for its very elements present them to the beginner in a simple and rather vague way: mountains are high and rough; lakes are bodies of standing water, and so on. It is to such types and terms as these that every scholar must continually return as he reads accounts of the world, and it is to be regretted that the types are yet so poorly chosen and so imperfectly illustrated, and that the terms are so few and so insufficient. Physical geography is particularly deficient in these respects, and needs to be greatly modified in the light of the modern advance of topography. General accounts of continental homologies of course have their interest and their value, but they are of the kind that would associate whales with fishes and bats with birds. The kind of reform that is needed here may be perceived from that which has overtaken the biological sciences. The better teaching of these subjects lays representative forms before the student and requires him to examine their parts minutely. The importance of the parts is not judged merely by their size, but by their significance also. From a real knowledge of these few types and their life history it is easy to advance in school days or afterwards to a rational understanding of a great number of forms. Few students ever go so far in school as to study the forests of North America or the fauna of South America. It is sufficient for them to gain a fair acquaintance with a good number of the type forms that make up these totals. It is quite time that geography should as far as possible be studied in the same way. No school boy can gain a comprehensive idea of the structure of a continent until he knows minutely the individual parts of which continents are composed. No explorer can perceive the full meaning of the country he traverses, or record his observations so that they can be read intelligently by others until he is fully conversant with the features of geographic types and with the changes in their expression as they grow old. Both scholar and explorer should be trained in the examination and description of geographic types, not necessarily copies of actual places, before attempting to study the physical features of a country composed of a large number of geographic individuals. When thus prepared, geography will not only serve in geologic investigation, it will prosper in its proper field as well.

Geographic description will become more and more definite as the observer has more and better type forms to which he may liken those that he finds in his explorations, and the reader, taught from the same types, will gather an intelligent appreciation of the observer's meaning. Take the region north of Philadelphia above referred to. Having grown up upon it, I called it a hilly country, in accordance with the geographic lessons of my school days, and continued to do so for twenty years or more, until on opening my eyes its real form was perceived. It is a surface worn down nearly to a former base level but now diversified by ramifying valleys, cut into the old base level in consequence of a subsequent but not very ancient elevation of a moderate amount. Maturity is not yet reached in the present cycle of development, for there is still much of the old base level surface remaining, into which the valleys are gnawing their head ravines and thus increasing the topographic differentiation. Perhaps not more than a sixth of the total mass above present base level is yet consumed. To say that a country is hilly gives so wide a range to the imagination that no correct conception of it can be gained, but I venture to think that one who understands the terms used can derive a very definite and accurate conception from the statement that a certain country is an old, almost completed base level, raised from one to three hundred feet, and well advanced toward maturity in its present cycle of change.