INTRODUCTION. 



Geographically the Lackawanna and Wyoming are distinct valleys, 

 the latter about 25 miles in length, occupied by a short stretch of the 

 great river of Pennsylvania the Susquehanna; the former by an east- 

 ern tributary of the Susquehanna, the Lackawanna river. Topographi- 

 cally, however, they form a single, narrow, synclinal valley, enclosed 

 by the Lackawanna mountain on the northwest, and the Moosic and 

 Wyoming mountains on the southeast, the two elevations coalescing at 

 each end and continuing as a single range. These two ranges curve 

 like a bow, giving the valley between 55 miles long, and in its widest 

 part 6 miles broad the form of a crescent. This depression is also geo- 

 logically of the same formation, and is known as the Northern Anthra- 

 cite Coal Basin of Pennsylvania. 



The Susquehanna breaks through the walls of Lackawanna mountain 

 into the middle region of this basin, leaving on the south side of this 

 gateway the bold cliffs and rocky terraces of Campbell's Ledge, 750 

 feet above the river. Immediately on entering the valley it is joined by 

 the Lackawanna, whose source is fifty miles from its mouth, far north- 

 ward of the coal-basin, one branch in the cold marshes of Ararat, Sus- 

 quehanna Co., one amoung the ponds of Preston, Wayne Co. 



This region, the eastern half of Susquehanna and the western half of 

 Wayne Co., 2000 feet above the sea, is a broad rolling tract of arable 

 but cold land, out of which rise the high isolated mountains of Ararat 

 Peak (which, with Sugarloaf mountain, terminate the northward exten- 

 sion of the Moosic range) and the beautiful double knob of Elk moun- 

 tain, 2600 and 2700 hundred feet respectively. The Lackawanna enters 

 the Anthracite valley by a gap near its extreme northern end, above 

 Forest City, and traverses it to the Susquehanna at Pittston. The latter 

 river, winding through the celebrated "Wyoming Valley,'' passes almost 

 out of the coal-basin, westwardly at Nanticoke, traverses a cleft in the 

 mountain barrier for some miles, turns directly south, cutting quite across 

 its southern end, and passes out below Mocanaqua. 



This synclinal valley rises from 550 feet above tide at Kingston, 573 feet 

 at Pittston, 740 feet at Scranton, 965 feet at Archbald, 1079 feet at Car- 

 bondale, to 1302 feet above tide at Campbell's Ledge, 2220 feet on Penob- 

 scot Knob, and 2385 feet on Bald mountain (west of Scranton). Its bed 



