BURIED VALLEY OF SUSQUEHANNA RIVER 561 
variation in the succession from place to place, finer sediments 
merging into coarser ones in a very irregular manner. There may 
be considerable till or glacial drift in the valley but it could not be 
recognized in bore-hole records. Apparently most of the materials 
have been deposited by the river in part by swift currents and in 
part in slack water under conditions not very different from present 
ones at time of freshet when the flats are widely flooded. 
The buried channel of Newport Creek.—The deep, narrow, sand- 
filled basin or trough under Newport Creek valley was described and 
discussed by Ashburner in 18857 and its configuration was shown by 
Griffith in 1909.” 
Later borings by the Susquehanna Coal Company have added 
some very important facts especially as to conditions north of shaft 
No. 2, where it is found that there is a rapid rise of the floor of the 
old valley instead of a continuous downgrade as previously sup- 
posed. Some of these data are shown in the map (Fig. 1). This 
valley differs from that of the Susquehanna in containing a 
relatively wide area of high terrace deposits rising high above the 
creek. 
The deposit in this valley is more than 250 feet thick in places, 
with its base nearly 150 feet below the bed of the creek and its top 
constituting a high terrace which originally occupied the entire 
valley. The greatest width is nearly one-half mile at a point about 
a half-mile above Nanticoke. Near shaft No. 2 in the northern part 
of Nanticoke the width of deposit remaining in the valley is only 
1,600 feet and the bottom of the buried valley is only 82 feet below 
the creek bed. The thickness of deposits also diminishes to the 
southwest but they extend up the valley to beyond Glen Lyon. 
They thicken locally near this place, for at the Catholic church the 
depth to bedrock is 109 feet. The material in Newport Creek 
valley is largely sand with scattered gravel deposits and bowlders, 
but some portions are so fine grained as to be classed as quicksand. 
Mill Creek buried valley—For much of its course Mill Creek 
flows in a wide valley that finally merges into the river terrace on 
which most of Wilkes-Barré is built. Now, however, the creek 
t Loc. cit. 
2 Loc cit. 
