8 



Bordering this valley on the northwest we have the conspi- 

 cuous mountain ridge known as the Blue Mountain or Kittatinny, 

 remarkable for the level outline of its summit, the singular 

 straightness of its course, and its superior elevation, compared 

 with any of the other hills of the State. The width of the moun- 

 tain at its base is from one to throe miles, varying at different 

 portions of its length, but being greatest where it traverses the 

 northern half of Sussex county. Its greatest height appears to 

 be at the Water Gap of the Delaware river, where it has been 

 estimated at Fourteen Hundred and Fifty Feet 



The materials composing this mountain are hard sandstone 

 and conglomerate, imparting to its steep and broken sides, and to 

 the country immediately at its base, a rough and stony soil, little 

 congenial to the wants of agriculture. Along its northwestern 

 base and slope this high ridge is almost every where covered 

 with forest; but in some portions of its length, especially that 

 part which lies in Sussex county near the New York line, large 

 tracts of fertile farms occupy its southeastern flank. This feature, 

 so unusual to the Kittatinny Mountain throughout its course across 

 Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and which seems confined to this 

 part of Sussex and to the adjacent counties of New York, arises 

 from the circumstance that the soft and tillable slates of the 

 southeastern base of the mountain rise to a more than usual 

 height upon its side in these cultivated sections. 



The rest of the northern region of the State lying between the 

 northwestern base of the Blue Mountain and the Delaware river, 

 is comprised in a narrow valley, the surface of which slopes 

 gently to the northwest or towards the river. The soil of this 

 confined belt of country is various, partaking partly of the nature 

 of the several underlying strata, partly of the materials which 

 have been swept hither by floods, from the adjoining Blue Moun- 

 tain and from the more elevated lands of Pennsylvania, lying to 

 the north and northwest. Immediately bordering upon the river 

 we find a belt of highly fertile land, of diluvial and alluvial origin, 

 gazing upon which the traveller on the summit of the Blue Moun- 

 tain may regale his eye with a series of highly pleasing pictures, 

 embracing a long tract of the richest farms, the meanderings of 

 the beautiful Delaware, and the picturesque and varied slopes of 

 the neighbouring ridges. 



