Susquehanna. -Area, 380 square miles; population in 1880, 40,354.
This square county is 34 miles long on the New York State line and
26 wide on the Bradford and Wayne lines. Nearly its whole surface
consists of rolling hills of Catskill red and gray shales, sandstones
and conglomerates, with calcareous breccias containing quantities
of broken fish scales and bones. In Rush Township, along the three
branches of Wyalusing Creek, the erosion has exposed Chemung rocks.
These also appear in the high cliffs which border the Great Bend of
the Susquehanna River; Wiley Creek valley for two miles; Salt Lick
Creek for 4 miles to Summers; Drinker’s Creek for 3 ½ miles; Canauacta
Creek nearly to Comfort’s Pond; and Starucca Creek for 5 miles in
Harmony township; also Snake Creek in Liberty for 7 miles to Franklin;
Choconut Creek for 9 miles to St. Mary’s; and Apolacon Creek nearly
to Friendsville. Only the high hills of Apolacon and Choconut retain
the lowest Catskill beds. In the south-east corner of the county at
Forest City, with its little anthracite coal mine, the Lackawanna
anthracite basin shallows to a point; and the Conglomerate No. XII,
with thin Red shale No. XI under it, rests on a mountain ridge of
Pocono sandstone No. X, through which the Lackawanna makes a deep
gap at the outlet of Stillwater Pond. The North and South Elk Mountain
Knobs, in the south-east corner of Herrick Township, are outlying
relics of formation No. X, witnessing to its former extension over
the whole county. The drainage of the county is about equally divided
between the waters of the Tunkhannock flowing south, the waters of
the Wyalusing flowing west, and the numerous small streams which flow
north into the Susquehanna. Montrose is centrally situated on the
high drainage divide (R.R. Station 1,656` A.T.) Glacial drift covers
the entire county, and consequently ponds and swamps are numerous,
with glacial dams, some of them very large; and there are many ancient
buried valleys some of which afford the finest illustrations of the
curious phenomenon of reversed drainage consequent upon the loose
deposits of the glacial age. The general level of the country around
the Elk Mountain Knobs is about 2,000` A.T. The North Knob rises to
2,700` and the South Knob to 2,575`; the former capped with sandstone
20`; interval concealed 175`; sandstone 10`; red shales, &c.,
100`; cliffs of Mt. Pleasant Conglomerate (the base
of the Pocono Formation No. X) 20; Mt Pleasant red shales
(top of the Catskill formation No. IX) 150`; interval 150`; Cherry
Ridge conglomerate sandstone and concealed 60`; Cherry
Ridge limestone 10; sandstone and shale 700`, (total say 1,400)
down to East Tunkhannock Creek water level at 1,300`. Since no glacial
scratches are seen above 2200` A.T. the two knobs seem to have projected
like round rocky islets 400` and 500` through and above the sea of
ice when it was at its maximum thickness. The Jefferson Branch railroad
crosses its summit in Ararat Township in a glacial drift cut 30` deep,
at 2020` A.T. Mount Ararat is only 2125` A.T. capped by Cherry
Ridge sandstone. The view from the wide ledge of rocks projecting
from the South Knob (Prospect Rock) at 2400` A.T. commands an unsurpassed
landscape. Fifty-one little lakes and ponds are catalogued in Report
G5, p.21, of which the highest (measured) Dunn Lake in
Ararat is 2100` more or less A.T.; Low Lake in Herrick 1905`; Wrighter’s
Pond in Thompson 1950`; Lewis and Crystal 1700` and 1750`; Silver
and Butler 1650` and 1665`; Meadow, Mud, Hart, Jones, Brown, Stillwater,
1575`, 1550`, 1540`, 1580`, 1560`, 1525`; Quaker, Tripp, Page, Upper,
Brown’s, 1450`, 1430`, 1400`, 1400`, 1415`; Brushville, Elk, Middle,
Lower, Tyler, 1305`, 1350`, 1365`, 1350`,1325`; and Tucker Pond 1200`.
Some are surrounded by extensive swamps showing that they have formerly
been larger. Bowlders of calcareous breccia of immense size are common
in the Drift, and lying on the surface. The soil is very fertile,
because chiefly derived from Catskill rocks, especially red shale,
a specimen of which when analyzed yields 4.855 per cent of alkalies.
(See Report G5, p.29.) There are no pure limestone strata
in the Catskill formation, but "Nigger-heads" or rounded bowlders
from the calcareous breccia outcrops are numerous enough to supply
the population with all the farm-lime they require. In the northern
townships the most important group of strata is that of (1) the New
Milford upper sandstone making bold cliffs near the hill tops
20`; (2) middle greenish gray, current-bedded sandstones and
alternate shales (some of them red) 300`: (3) lower sandstone
(making a great show opposite the New Milford depot, 70` over the
railroad, and an unbroken line of cliffs to the "Fort 76 Cliff" at
Great Bend, where it overhangs the river more than 400` vertically,
and so onwards) 20`. On the Bradford County line this rock lies 200`
above Wyalusing Creek water level; and in the south-west corner of
the county, it is quarried for flagstones at Skinner’s Eddy, 240`
above river level, where it contains many plant remains. Below it
lie the New Milford red shales, with calcareous breccia layers,
100` to 120`. Below these the Starucca olive shales, 105`.
Under the last appear the top layers of Formation No. VIII, olive
shales with Chemung fossils, 20`; olive sandstones 3`; conglomerate
with flat pebbles, 1`; olive sandstone 4`; olive shale
8`; olive sandstone 4`; then the Mansfield red beds
of Tioga county: olive shale with iron ore near the middle
40`; brick red shale 10`; green sandstone 5`; greenish upper and purple
lower shales 20`; olive shale with Spirifer shells and fish
fragments. Then the Cascade sandstone (Fall Creek conglomerate
of Bradford county) 25`; olive shale and sandstone, very fossiliferous,
30`; brown sandstone 25`; shale 25`; brown sandstone, very fossiliferous,
15`; shales and flags, fossiliferous, 25`, (total 275` of Chemung
upper strata exposed at the fine falls on Cascade Creek, 2 m.N.E.
of mouth of Starucca Creek.) The Cascade conglomerate is identified
by Prof. White with the 3d Oil Sand of Venango County, but
no signs of petroleum present themselves in this part of Pennsylvania.
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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