Anthracite formation of Wilkesbarre, Sc. 5 
On the height of land, the veins of coal are more level 
than in our valley, where the strata dip from the height of 
ftve hundred feet, at an angle of from 10 to 35°, towards the 
river on both sides, inducing a belief that the valley has been 
formed by the sinking of the surface. 
The coal alternates with schist, argillite or thonschiefer, 
micaceous slate, (5,) and micaceous sand stone, (6 ;) which 
last is in strata from five to one hundred feet thick, the coal 
itself forming veins of from thirty to forty feet deep, though 
the general thickness is from twelve to fifteen feet. The 
deposition of vegetable matter to have formed such masses 
of coal, making allowance for its compression, must have 
been enormous. You will not fail to remark that the mica 
of the slate is very abundant, and the presumption is, that 
it is of very old formation. 
The bed of the river is composed of coarse gravel, three 
fourths of which are pieces of granite, sienite, porphyry, pri- 
mitive limestone, chert, hornstone, petrosilex, &c. ; although 
for one hundred and twenty miles above this, not one primi- 
tive rock is to be seen on either side of the river, whilst 
the entire bed of the river, as far up as I have been, is 
composed principally of the above primitive stones brought 
down the river, and rounded by attrition. This bed of 
gravel, which extends to a considerable distance on each 
side of the river, is, in many places twenty-five feet above 
its present level. The alluvion of the river is a clayey 
loam. All the finer clays which are found in it, vitrify at a 
strong heat, and have evidently been formed from the de- 
composition of the feldspar, of the granite gravel of its bed. 
This gravel, at Wilkesbarre, reposes on a thick bed of clay. 
Intermixed with these primitive stones, are found the habi- 
tations of molluscous animals, generally imbedded in chert. 
About forty miles above, to the N. W. a stratum of sea 
shells, twenty feet thick, rises to the summit of the highest 
hill adjoining the river—they are chiefly bivalves. These, 
when burnt, form a coarse lime mixed with considerable 
sand. When long exposed to water, this stratum loses its 
calcareous matter, leaving the impressions of the shell in 
the sand. Aspecimen of this brought down by the river 
is marked.* 
* With a figure resembling the Greek Delta 
