INTRODUCTION. 



oaks, red cherry, raspberry, brake and bristly sarsaparilla have take the 

 place of the original forests on lands desolated by the lumberman's axe 

 and by fire. There are portions of the pristine "Evergreen Woods" 

 still left, or but just disappearing. The dark, dense Spruce woods about 

 Lehigh Pond is an instance. Here we still find the Lady Slipper and 

 Orchis undisturbed, and see how the Rhododendron, when in flower, 

 lighted up the gloom of the forest primeval when the earliest travelers 

 crossed the Pocono. This is indeed a natural forest region, and the 

 removal of the woods only demonstrates more clearly, what one of the 

 earliest observers asserted, viz : the utter uselessness of a large portion 

 for either pasture or cultivation. 



Every consideration of economy, public good, and even private wealth, 

 demand that these regions be reforested. If woods again cover this 

 table-land they will hold back, by means of the spongy soil they accu- 

 mulate, the surplus freshet waters from the hundred torrents and moun- 

 tain-brooks which supply pure water to the great coal-valley cities, and 

 which ought to keep up through the long drouths the volume of the Le- 

 high, Lackawanna, and the brooks flowing into the Delaware. Further- 

 more, the pine, hemlock, spruce and cherry which once grew here to 

 "amazing size," may be again grown through planting, as they are in 

 the mountains of Europe, and made a source of future wealth. 



LOCAL NAMES. 



In Ileckwelder's History of the Indian Nations, Brinton's Lenni 

 Lenape, the works of Peter Kalm, David Zeisberger, George Henry 

 Loskill, Clark, Hale, and others, the meaning given of a number of the 

 Delaware names applied to our region has interested me. I give a few 

 notes on the important ones. 



Susquehanna : the latter part of river names among the Delawares, 

 viz., hanna, hanni or hannock, means a "flowing stream" ; and Heck- 

 welder says Susquehanna means a "straight stream," referring to its 

 course near the mouth. 



Lackawanna {Lechau-hanneck), "the fork of the river," referring to 

 the junction of this with the Susquehanna. 



Lehigh (Lechau\ the same as the preceding, meaning here the fork 

 or branch of the Delaware. 



Tobyhanna (Topi-hanneck), the "alder stream." 



Timkhannock) the "small stream." 



Wyoming, the "great plains." 



Moosic, origin not known to me. It is near a word in one of the Del- 



