Omaha daily bee., 1916-07-27
Morvelour Story of
the Palisades
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.

What makes the tops OF the raj
lisades along the Hudson so level?
How many millions of people must
have looked across from the trains
of the New York Central and been
struck by the remarkable levelness.
as if giant scraper had gone over!
F. w. c."
The Palisades are one OF the Won
ders of the world, a fact that is not
sufficiently appreciated by the mil
lions of people who dwell within a
few miles of them, and do not need
to take railroad journey in order
to see the spectacle of natures
powers which they present. Perhaps
it may serve to stimulate interest in
our wonderful Palisades if the fact
is mentioned that the moon has
something similar to them, at least
in appearance.
Near the western border Of the
great lunar plain called the Mare
Nubium there is a straight, lofty.
smooth-topped rock wall, as unique
in the scenery of the moon as the
Palisades of the Hudson are in that
of the earth. 1t faces the east, just
as the Palisades do, and, l have no
doubt, it would present to an OBJ
server looking at it from the plain
an appearance strikingly like the
battlemented front of New Jersey
seen from the eastern shore of the
Hudson.
Another interesting fact is that
both of these phenomena, though
situated in two different worlds,
quarter of a million miles apart, may
have had similar origin. The Pal
isades attain a height of $50 feet;
the rock wall of the Mare Nubium
is, according to some estimates, of
about the same height, but accord
ing to others twice as high.
The Palisades are about fifteen
miles in length, while their lunar
analogue is sixty miles long. In one
they widely differ; the Pal
isades have behind them deep val
ley, while the wall on the moon is
backed by a long, gradual slope.
About the details of the formation
of the lunar wall we know nothing,
but the history of the Palisades has
been 'plainly written in geological
language. The material of which
they consist was thrust up in molten
state during what is known as the
Triassic Period, which is the first
division of Mesozoic Time, following
Immediately after the close of Pal
aeozoic Time, whose most important
period was the Carboniferous Age,
during which the principal coal beds
were laid down.
Thus we see that the hard trap
rock of the Palisades, though hoary
with age, is younger POSSIBLY by
of years. than the brittle
coal which snaps and CLOVIS in our
CRATES and furnaces, and sometimes
preserves the grain and veining of the
wood and leaves out of which it was
created.
If you will visit the top of the Pal
isades, carrying a bit of anthracite
in your pocket, and will place the coal
on the summit of one of the huge,
gray, basaltic columns, which seem
to rise, out of the very centre of the
earth and to be as ancient as the
globe itself, you will be amazed by
the thought that the coal is the pat
riarch and the rock the infantl
But I have not yet told you why
the top of the Palisades is so level.
The manner of their formation offers
the explanation. At or before the
beginning of the Triassic Period a
large body of shallow water lay
nearly parallel with the (then more
distant) coast of the Atlantic, from
what is now the upper end of the
Palisade range, through New Jersey
and southeastern Pennsylvania, down
into the heart of Virginia. 1t oc-
cupied a valley, or series of valleys,
formed eby the crumpling up of the
Appalachian Mountains.
As ages passed deposits of sand
and gravel were formed by the water,
and a slow subsistence Of the crust
of the globe beneath took place, while
the deposit above increased to thou
sands Of feet in thickness. The final
result was fracturing of the deep
seated strata that formed the bottom
and sides of the original trough, and
molten rock was thrust up by the
strain through the assures.
The upwelling lava pushed aside
the red sandstone, into which the
deposits laid down by the water had
been changed, and left the marks of
its heat on all sides. But as it rose
it cooled into hard bikes and crystal
LIKED into huge columnar columns,
and the greatest of these formations
became the Palisades.
The top of the wall-like mass thus
formed was nearly level because the
lava pushed its way through a long
hssure, between the tilted strata of
which was probably sew
eral hundred feet broad, when pried
open, and the upheaving force was
nearly uniform from one end to the
other. II was like semi-liquid wave.
1t broke down precipitously on the
side toward which it moved in fol-
lowing the slope OF the inclined hs-
sure, because it is the nature of cool
ing basalt, or trap rock, to form in
to columns standing at right angles
to the direction of flow, .and the front
of the mass would, consequently,
have a nearly vertical face. In the
great glacial age the top of the Pal
isades was planned over by the ice,
but this only smoothed out relatively
small irregularities.
The main features of the architec-
ture of the Palisades were determined
as soon as they cooled. If we were
as imaginative as the ancient Greeks
we would probably say that the Pal
isades were upheaved by giant
trying to break up out Of his prison
in tn, earth.