18SG. | dtfc* [Branner. 



to believe they were brought down by the river from the glaciated regions 

 lying farther north, rather than by the ice. Even fragments from the 

 Catskill shales cannot be regarded as very common, when compared with 

 those from the Pocono sandstone, the Pottsville conglomerate, and the 

 carboniferous shales, sandstones and coal. Especially is this true of the 

 Lackawanna end of the valley north-east of Scranton. In a cut about forty 

 feet deep, where the Winton Branch of the D. L. & W. railway passes 

 through the drift near Eddy creek, many fragments of the reddish shales 

 and sandstones of the Catskill maybe seen. Judging by the lithological 

 characters of these fragments, and by the direction of striation, they proba 

 bly came from the tops of the hills just south of the Susquehanna County 

 line, near Crystal Lake, in which case they must have traveled at least fif- 

 teen miles. 



The character of the arrangement of the material changes with its ele- 

 vation. That in the deeper parts of the valley is generally water-worn, 

 and shows, by its being assorted and more or less stratified, that it was de- 

 posited in, or frequently washed by water. Karnes of this material are, in 

 some cases, nearly or quite a hundred feet in height. Higher up the sides 

 of the valley no regular arrangement of the material appears, and the 

 fragments that lie heaped in many of the hollows are rough and angular, 

 and bear no signs of having been worn in a glacier, but appear to have 

 been transported upon its surface. Of the latter kind of drift there is com- 

 paratively but little, while the former kind appears to have originally 

 filled the deeper depressions along the trough of the valley. Here, the 

 streams, seeking their natural channels, have washed away much of the 

 original drift, and spread it out over the flood plains and alluvial lands 

 down stream, leaving our present kames for the most part lying along the 

 foot of the hills. In the upper or north-eastern end of the valley there are 

 comparatively few kames, and these are generally of coarser material, 

 while toward the lower end of the valley, below Scranton, they are more 

 abundant, and have more sand and fine material in them. 



The valley of the Lackawanna above Carbondale is so narrow, and the 

 fall of the stream so rapid, that but little drift now remains along its 

 course from the gap through which it enters the coal basin above Forest 

 City to Morss' tannery near Carbondale. Below this point the bottom of the 

 valley is restricted at several points, so as to form a series of dams, or, 

 more properly speaking, of narrows, which have acted as dams to spread 

 the floods of post glacial times out over low lands, or flats, immediately 

 above them. The first of these dams below Carbondale appears to have 

 been caused by the proximity of the drift on the south-east side of the 

 % valley to the little hill on the northwest side, at the base of which the 

 bridge of the common road now crosses the Lackawanna in the town of 

 Jermyn.* 



In this case the dam may have been at or near where Rush brook now 



*The dams in this part of the valley do not appear to have been as well 

 delined as some of them further down the river. 



