8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



great fire of 1882, but with the horizon you come to the edge of 

 the Pocono plateau, a country of huckleberry barrens, burnt 

 over every few years, and having few trees save scrubby fire- 

 cherries and sassafrases. Eastward the outlook was over the 

 gorge of the Buck Hill Branch with its old hemlocks and oaks 

 out into the open valley, and its farmland and over upland 

 farms to the reddish cliSs of Spruce Mountain and Wismer 

 Mountain and to the green, rounded outlines of East Mountain, 

 looking lawn-like and smooth at this distance with its knee- 

 high growth of huckleberries. 



At the far end of East Mountain is Goose Pond. Below the 

 far end of Wismer is Price's Pond, and on this side of Wismer 

 Gravel's Swamp, but there is no water in sight anywhere. You 

 can see, however, the deep vallej's running back into the 

 Pocono plateau, cut out by the various branches of Broadhead's 

 Creek — Mill Creek furthest southwestward, then Rattlesnake, 

 then the Buck Hill, then Middle Branch and Levis Branch fur- 

 thest northeastward — all draining parts of the plateau. The 

 vallej'S of these creeks I explored, becoming more familiar with 

 that of the Buck Hill, but spending a good deal of time on the 

 Middle Branch and the Levis Branch and hunting up the source 

 of the Goose Pond Branch in Goose Pond in the jjinebarrens of 

 Pike County. This pond is the only piece of water of any size 

 in the vicinity, Price's Pond being scarcely larger than a coun- 

 try mill-dam, and the tannery dams on the Rattlesnake being 

 all but empty now. Southwestward and westward are the great 

 ice dams on the Tobyhanna — Mr. Carter's neighborhood* — and 

 eastward the big ponds of Pike County. 



Along some of the branches of Broadhead's Creek there is 

 still some primeval forest, but only a bit here and there; the 

 upper courses of all of them run through country burnt over for 

 huckleberries or for grazing for cattle or sheep. Just below the 

 Buck Hill settlement and about Buck Hill Falls are a few acres 

 where the old hemlocks are still standing. There is not here 

 continuous hemlock forest with floor bare save for the hobble- 

 bush such as you find in some parts of Pennsylvania, but a 



*Cf. Cassinia, 1904. p. 29. 



