316 , Notice of the Anthracite Region in the 



from fifty to eighty years since, and the repeated attempts which 

 were made to dispossess them by arms, sufficiently evince the high 

 estimation hi which it was held by all die pardes. Without re- 

 calling the painful circumstances of that unexampled controversy, 

 it is not improper to say, that the prize for wditch die setders con- 

 tended was worthy of all die heroism, fordtude, and long sufiering^ 

 perseverance, which, during so many years, they disj)layed;* an ex- 

 hibition of moral courage rarely equalled and never surpassed. Be- 

 lieving themselves, both in a polidcal and personal view, to be the 

 rightful proprietors of die country, they defended it even to the death; 

 and no one who now surveys this charming valleyf can wonder that 

 they would not quietly relinquish their claim. 



Scenery and surface. 



L 



J 



Although the view under which It is now before us, relates princi- 

 pally to science and nanonal resources, I will not hold myself pre- 

 cluded from alluding to some of those additional attracUons, which 

 may conspire to draw the intelligent traveller to this valley. Its form 

 is that of a very long oval or ellipse. It is bounded by grand moun- 

 tain barriers and watered by a noble river and its tributaries. The 

 first glance of a stranger entering at either end, or crossing the moun- 

 tain ridges which divide it, (like the happy valley of Abyssinia,) from 

 the rest of the world, fills him w^ith the peculiar pleasure produced 

 by a fine landscape, combining richness, beauty, variety and grandeur. 

 From Prospect Hill, on the rocky summit of the eastern barrier, and 

 from Ross' Hill, on the west, the valley of Wyoming is seen in one 

 WW, as a charming whole, and hs lofty and well defined boundarie 

 exclude more distant objects from mingling m the prospect. Few 

 landscapes, that I have seen, can vie with the valley of Wyoming- 

 Excepdng some rocky precipices and cliffs, the mountains are wood- 

 ed from the summit lo their base; natural sections furnish avenues 

 for roads, and the rapid Susquehanna rolls its powerful current 

 through a mountain gap, on the north west, and immediately re- 

 ceives the Lackawanna, which flows down the narrower valley of 

 the same name. A similar pass between the mountains, on 



■^ 



die 



* See TrumLull's History of ConnecHcut and Chapman's History of the Valley 

 of Wyoming. 



t The claim embraced aUo a much morr exten.^ive country west and north west 

 of Wj'ouiing. 



