3. CENTRE TOWNSHIP. F 2 . 171 



beauty of those through the Buffalo hills, being less deep 

 and narrow and usually cleared of timber. Limestone ridge 

 passes at a short distance north of New Bloomfield and is 

 capped in many places with rugged, moss-grown pulpit 

 rocks of the Oriskany sandstone, forming long, straight 

 ridges. Gray wethers of the same material dot the fields 

 and woods on both sides of these ridges and bear witness to 

 their former wider extent. 



The vale of New Bloomfield lies between Limestone ridge 

 on the north and Mahanoy ridge on the south. It is the 

 most fertile portion of the township. The soil is compara- 

 tively rich and Avarm, and being mostly under cultivation 

 yields good returns. 



Mahanoy ridge passes immediately south of New Bloom- 

 field. It is high, often steep, and well covered with small 

 timber. The gaps in this range, though shorter, resemble 

 those through the Buffalo hills, being narrow, winding, and 

 dark with spruce and pine. The meaning of the name is 

 unknown but it is probably of Indian origin. It occurs 

 in Northumberland county as the name of a creek and of a 

 small town standing upon its banks. Another Mahanoy is 

 a station of the Catawissa railway on Catawissa creek in 

 Schuylkill county. The word is usually pronounced with a 

 guttural sound as if it were spelled ,4 Mac^onoy, the cli 

 having the Scotch or German sound. A connection may 

 hence be inferred with the name Mauch Chunk where the 

 ch is pronounced in a similar manner. 



There is much more picturesqueness in the geography of 

 a county when the names of the great and abiding features 

 of the landscape — those that remain while men come and 

 g< k " the everlasting hills," the valleys and rivers — bear the 

 names bestowed on them by a race that has passed away. 

 Such names are fossils, superficially meaningless to the pre- 

 sent inhabitants, but showing when studied a significance 

 and richness of association that no name of recent signifi- 

 cation can contain. 



The slopes of Mahanoy are tilled only up to a small 

 height, as their upper parts are too steep to render cultiva- 

 tion profitable. 



