Potter. - Area, 1,070 square miles; population in 1880, 13,797. This
large square, on the New York State line, with its south-west angle
cut off to form part of Cameron, is the most geologically symmetrical
in the State; an elevated wilderness crossed diagonally (N.E. and
S.W.) by ten parallel belts of lower Catskill anticlinal valley land,
and of intermediate higher synclinals of Pocono table-land; the former
showing the underlying Chemung in their deeper water-courses; the
latter trenched lengthwise and crosswise by innumerable gorges, cut
down from 200 to 500 feet by a radiating-drainage system: Kettle creek
waters flowing south; Pine creek waters, east; Tioga river waters,
north-east; Genessee waters north; Oswayo creek north-west; the heads
of the Allegheny river, west; and the Sinnemahoning waters south-west.
On a tract of land near Raymond corners, 2,500` A.T. (the highest
flat land in the State) the rain-fall parts and flows in three directions-
to the Gulf of Mexico, to Chesapeake bay, and to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
And precisely over this highest flat land in Pennsylvania, passes
the line of the great Terminal moraine, left by the northern ice in
its retreat at the close of the Glacial age, a line, nearly straight,
from Pike Mills on Pine creek at the Potter county line, to Goldsmith
village in the north-west corner of the county; the north-eastern
third being covered with a sheet of Drift; the south-west tow thirds
quite bare. In front of the moraine, in the valley of Pine creek below
West Pike P.O., are the remarkable secondary glacial terraces described
in Report Z, p. 145 (pictured in plate 15, fig.4, p.106.) The northern
prong of the Wellsborough Chemung valley of Tioga county penetrates
Hector and Jackson townships to West Pike P.O.; extensive outcrops
of Chemung follow all the streams of Harrison township; and a broad
belt of Chemung crosses Oswayo and Sharon townships. Everywhere else
the Bradford oil group is far underground. The rocks of the northern
townships are nearly horizontal; but the dips increase in strength
going south; but never enough to make the synclinals deep enough to
preserve anything that could deserve the name of a coal basin. The
high lands (all synclinal) retain on many of the highest summits patches
of the Conglomerate XII; or of its lowest member, the Olean conglomerate;
or of the Mauch Chunk red shale formation No. XI, which is however
very thin. At Coudersport, Roulet, Hebron, &c., the formations
are: - Olean conglomerate 50`; slates and sands, 70`; Sub-Olean
flat-pebble conglomerate 60`; Pocono gray shale and sandstone,
and red shale 20`; false-bedded sandstone and shale, 50`; gray shale
with red beds 110`; gray shale and sandstone 90`; Catskill
red shale, with gray shale and flagstone 110`; gray shale and sandstone
(with fish-beds) 60`; red, gray, and green shales 200`; Chemung
gray shale and sandstone (with fish-beds in the upper part) 140`?;
olive shale 30`; red shale, &c., &c., downwards. In the southern
townships the formations gradually thicken to their size in Lycoming
county (which see, already described.) the coal bed opened fifty years
ago west of Coudersport has been fully explored and found to be a
worthless bed only 12 to 16 inches thick, in the Sharon shales over
the Olean conglomerate; another small seam overlies it 50`; and a
third underlies it as much. The Mill Creek coal basin of Tioga county
runs into Pike County, and a 3` coal has been mined north of the West
branch of Pine Creek, and at Whitmore run in Jackson township. In
Summit Township the plain over which the old turnpike passes is underlaid
by a 3` coal bed at Herod’s tavern, and another 1` coal lies 20` higher.
In the next basin to the south, the center line crossing Kettle Creek
11/2 miles N. of Oleona, and at the top of one of the knobs into which
the mountain is broken, remains a few acres of a 3` coal bed, lying
on the (Olean?) conglomerate, 80 thick, overhanging a slope of 700`
down to the creek.
From: A geological hand atlas of the sixty-seven
counties of Pennsylvania :embodying the results of the field work
of the survey, from 1874 to 1884. By J. P. Lesley. (Report of
progress (Geological Survey of Pennsylvania), v. X ) Harrisburg, PA
: Board of commissioners for the second geological survey, 1885.
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