Beaver Meadow Mine. 19 



end, with the curve uppermost, and this, is the form of the mountain of 

 which they are a part. 



There is here the most striking appearance that these strata have 

 been raised by a force from beneath, and it is difficult to avoid the con- 

 viction that they were also broken at the top ; for, at the upper bend 

 of the stratum of coal, there is a huge rock, twenty feet in two of its di- 

 mensions and five or six feet in the other, which has been broken off 

 from the roof rock, a graywacke of which it is a part, and fallen in, 

 and the coal seems then to have closed all around and shut it in, on 

 all sides, except, that in one place, on the right hand a little below 

 the top, the rupture is continued to the surface, and that place was 

 then filled and concealed by the loose rubbish and soil, as was also 

 the rock above. It appears to present a strong confirmation of the 

 truth of the suggestions made in the notice of the great mine at Mauch 

 Chunk namely that an upheaving force exerted with vast energy, 

 from below, has bent, dislocated, and broken the strata. 



BEAVER MEADOW MINE. 



Leaving the Nesquihoning and passing a narrow valley, we now 

 crossed the contiguous Broad Mountain, by a long and rather tedious 

 ascent. We passed near the celebrated Wyoming path, which ap- 

 pears to be still used by foot travellers, as it anciently was by the In- 

 dians in their journies from the Lehigh to the valley of Wyoming, on 

 -the Susquehanna. This path is so well trodden, that from the Nes- 

 quihoning on the opposite side of the valley, two or three miles 

 off, we could distinctly see it winding up the mountain through the 

 evergreen forest trees, there, free from underwood, sparsely scatter- 

 ed, and having tall branchless trunks. This path was once trodden by 

 nations that now tread the earth no more, for, of all the powerful 

 tribes that anciently hunted and warred among these rivers and moun- 

 tains, not an individual, so far as we could learn, remains. The 

 Creeks, the Cherokees and the Chocktaws will soon follow in their 

 train, and if they find another land, it will be one from whose bourne 

 no Indian will ever return. Night brought us to a solitary house in the 

 midst of a vast mountain morass, reclaimed in part to agriculture and 

 called the Beaver Meadow; doubtless from the ancient ocupation of this 

 region, so appropriate to their habits, by a race of animals, which, like 

 the Indians, always disappear before the dominion of civilized man. 



Our humble house, made cheerful by the civility and devotion of a 

 most respectable and intelligent family, gave us a comfortable res- 

 ting place, and early the next morning, May 15, we made an excur- 

 sion to the Beaver Meadow coal n)int?. 



