316 Notice of the Anthracite Region in the 



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

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

 estimation in which it was held by all the parties. Without re- 

 calling the painful circumstances of that unexampled controversy, 

 it is not improper to say, that the prize for which the settlers con- 

 tended was worthy of all the heroism, fortitude, and long suffering 

 perseverance, which, during so many years, they displayed ;* an ex- 

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

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

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

 and no one who now surveys this charming valley f can wonder that 

 they would not quietly relinquish their claim. 



Scenery and surface. 



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

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

 cluded from alluding to some of those additional attractions, 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 with 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 

 view, as a charming whole, and its lofty and well defined boundaries 

 exclude more distant objects from mingling in the prospect. Few 

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

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

 ed from the summit to 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 the 



* See Trumbull's History of Connecticut and Chapman's History of the Valley 

 of Wyoming. 



t The claim embraced also a much more extensive country west and north west 

 of Wyoming. 



