GEOLOGY OF THE REGION. G 5 . 43 



There must be some geological cause for this knot of high- 

 land, so flat on top as to hold scores of lakes, and from which 

 the waters drain off in all directions. 



The Stoc7cporta?iUclinalfiivmsh.es y probably, the required 

 explanation. 



At Stoclvport on the Delaware the rocks dip very gently 

 up river ; and this northwardly dip continues for miles along 

 the river towards Port Deposit. 



Below Stockton the rocks in the Delaware cliffs dip south- 

 ward, also very gentle and for many miles, as has already 

 been said. 



The anticlinal roll or arch thus shown, must pass across 

 Wayne county in a west-southwest direction, under the 

 Preston township highland, with its ponds, towards the end 

 of the Moosic mountain ; and this anticlinal has probably 

 caused the death of the Lackawanna coal basin, by lifting 

 into the air the whole of Mt. Pleasant township. 



This anticlinal has had two other effects : — it has forced the 

 Chehocton and Shrawder creek waters to flow northeastward, 

 sloping down the dip ; and the whole water-tree of the Star- 

 ucca creek to flow northwestward, directly down the dip ; — 

 and it has forced the two great branches of the Delaware 

 river to unite before cutting through the anticlinal. 



Shrawder s creek itself flows along a synclinal, described 

 by Mr. Sherwood as running east-northeastward through 

 IS'ew York State. This synclinal must pass (westward) under 

 Starucca, and flatten out in Susquehanna county, unless it 

 bends southward and connects itself with the Moosic mount- 

 ain synclinal. But where the country is so covered with 

 surface deposits, and its rocks so nearly horizontal that noth- 

 ing short of innumerable lines of spirit level survey can de- 

 termine the existence of any dip at all, such identifications 

 become as difficult as they are unimportant. 



