GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY OF THE VALLEY.
From Prospect Rock, overlooking the valley from the rear of Wilkes barre, a fine view is presented. The plains and hills on each side of the river spread out like a picture below, dotted with town and village, colliery and farm; diversified with grove and homestead, swelling hills and gentle dales, and animated by the moving panorama of a busy multitude. Here now rushes the iron horse along his shining track; there creep the boat men along their silvery path ; and on every side arises the steam of the laboring engines which draw from beneath those attractive scenes the hidden wealth which makes Wyoming, perhaps, the richest valley under the sun.
The scene from Prospect Rock is given in a former chapter, in connec tion with our account of the discovery and use of coal in the valley. Below we give a view of Campbell's Ledge, opposite Pittston, which not only commands a fine prospect both down the valley proper and up the Lackawanna, but is in itself a picturesque object, and offers a good exposition of the formation of the rocks underlying the coal measures.
At the foot of Campbell's Ledge, the Susquehanna breaks through the huge Shawnee Mountain from the north, and glides gracefully, with a sweeping curve, into the valley. Here it is met by the tawny waters of the Lackawanna, which—pretentious stream as it is—scarcely swells the volume of the noble river. From this point the Susquehanna meanders lingeringly down the vale to Nanticoke, some 18 miles from where it enters; and here it leaves the valley again, breaking through the mountain barrier on the same side it entered.
From Nanticoke the river runs parallel with the coal-field, a short distance to the right, and in the soft red shales underlying the con glomerate, some nine miles, to Shickshenny, and here again, for the last time, crosses the extremity of the coal-field. But here the outcropping coal, which lie over a thousand feet below the bed of the river at Nanti coke, is two hundred feet above it.
The Lackawanna comes down from the east through the upper portion of the coal-field and joins the Susquehanna at Pittston, or the foot of Campbell's Ledge, as mentioned above,—traversing a distance of about 25 miles.
The mountains enclosing the great valley, or basin, are parallel for a distance of 50 miles, and distant, from crest to crest, about four miles; but at each extremity they meet or terminate. On the northern side runs the Shawnee range, and on the south is the Wyoming Mountain: the Wyoming Valley, therefore, is the proper name for the entire basin. The Lacka wanna seems to be a misnomer as a general cognomen, 4hough locally applicable as the bed of the stream ; while the use of Lackawanna instead of Wyoming, as a distinctive name for the northern anthracite coal-field, is unwarrantable.