3. OENTKE TOWNSHIP. F'. Ill 



Centre township possesses no large stream. Its southern 

 valley is drained by the Little Juniata, which rises in 

 Spring township and flows between Mahanoy and Crawley 

 hill, then between Mahanoy and Iron ridge, and lastly be- 

 tween Mahanoy and Dick's hill until it reaches the gap near 

 Montebello furnace through which it passes and continues 

 in a southeasterly direction to meet the Susquehanna at 

 Duncannon. The Bloomfleld branch of the Little Juniata 

 rises in the Avest of the township and drains the vale of 

 Bloomfleld, passing immediately south of the town where 

 it receives the waters of the "Town spring" and a number 

 of smaller ones, and flows through the gap in Mahanoy ridge 

 to meet the larger stream. 



All the waters north of Limestone ridge, in Centre town- 

 ship, and most of those that rise among its branches and 

 spurs flow away to the north and pass through one or 

 another of the gaps above mentioned in the Buffalo range 

 till they meet the Little Buffalo. They are insignificant in' 

 size, but some of them supply mill-power as they flow 

 through the narrow defiles. 



B. Geological description. 



The rocks of Centre township, like those of Perry county 

 in general, have been subjected to violent compression and 

 crumpling, and stand at all angles up to and even beyond 

 the vertical, being in some cases overturned, so that what 

 was their lower side is now the upper. 



The Onondaga variegated shale. {No. V.) 



These variegated beds of the vale of Bloomfleld, the 

 lowest or oldest in Centre township, occupy a strip along 

 the middle of the township about three quarters of a mile 

 wide at its western line, narrowing to nothing at the east. 



The upper part of the group consists of alternating layers 

 of yellow-greenish and red shale none of them very hard but 

 containing thin beds of sandstone which form a long low 

 ridge along the middle of the outcrop. The ridge may be 

 traced almost continuously. It passes through the town of 

 Xew Bloomfleld, whence I have named it the Bloomfleld 

 12 F\ 



