Falls Mill on the Yantic River in Norwich as it appeared in the 19th century. The mill once employed 375 women and 175 men, making cotton sheets. The buildings still stand and were recently converted to apartments. The gorge in the background is a well-known local spot called "Uncas Leap."

geologic discontinuity: the junction of the northern and southern divisions of the Bolton Range.

In many places, however, the courses of Uplands rivers show complete indifference to the bedrock geology. For reasons that still elude complete understanding, many rivers and streams in the Uplands abruptly cross ranges of hard rock. For instance, the Thames River on its run from Norwich to Long Island Sound cuts perpendicularly across the east-west portion of the Mohegan Range. And the Housatonic River seemingly ignores bedrock geology from New Milford, where it leaves the Marble Valley, to Stratford, where it empties into Long Island Sound.

Some of the apparent inconsistencies with the bedrock can be ascribed to disruption of the landscape by glaciation. Others may be due to a process called "stream superpositioning.' This idea was proposed in the early 1900s by geologist Joseph Barrell to explain the courses of the Housatonic, the Connecticut, and some other rivers. The theory goes like this: There once was a blanket of loose sediments that overlaid the hard bedrock. Streams and rivers established courses over these sediments that had nothing to do with the bedrock buried below. As the blanket of sediments was eroded down to the bedrock, the anomalous courses of the rivers were superimposed onto the bedrock below. But some river courses still defy explanation, indicating that the adjustment of flowing water to rock obstacles is still continuing (and possibly that our knowledge of earth processes is not yet complete).

With the coming of the industrial revolution, the predilection of Uplands rivers for taking difficult paths across the bedrock became very beneficial to the people of Connecticut. Water flowing across hard bedrock is likely to form waterfalls or at least rapids. When falls or rapids form on a large river, the potential for water power is great. The industrial revolution provided the impetus to tap this potential. Suddenly, the rivers were no longer ignored. Big dams were constructed and big mills - the first real factories - started springing up throughout the Uplands. Textile mills dominated in the Eastern Uplands, while the Western Uplands saw mainly manufacturing and metal works.

The water-powered factories of the industrial revolution brought a whole new way of life to the Uplands. Hundreds of workers were needed

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