The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-07-15

they keep rocks twirling round in de-
presslons of the valley bed.
"When a pot-hole is finished by a |
change in the location of the water
fall, it gets filled with smaller round
ed boulders, gravel and sand. If there
were any horizontal coal beds not far
underneath the bed of an Alpine valley,
such coal bed would be sure to have
one or more glacial pot-holes in it. per-
haps going clear through 1t, filled with
gravel.
"Now in that cold age. Canada, New
England, New York, Northern New Jer-
scy and Northern Pennsylvania down
to a line stretching from Olean through
Ralston, Berwick ,and Eckley to Belvi-
dere, on the Delaware river, and from
Belvidere to Amboy, were entirely COW
cred with a solid continuous sheet of
Ice, in some places 5000 feet thick dn
New Hampshire 5000 feeD moving
southwark carrying rocks of all kinds
and Sizes plowing and scratching the
surface of the country. and making
pot-holes OF various depths from 10 to
20 and so feet, most of which are now
concealed by n thick covering of drift,
that is, the gravel, sand and clay which
the ice carried forward as 1t advanced,
and left behind it when it melted.
Many of these pot-holes have been
accidentally uncovered Oike yours)
and have been always found filled with
gravel of a foreign origin, no matter
what the formation was in which the
pot holes were excavated. In some, ex-
posed by cutting a mill race west Of
| Albany the bones of mammoth were
| found mixed with gravel.
ICE 1000 FEET THICK.
1--WE have calculated the thickness
of the ice where it moved over
| Stroudsburg, in Monroe county, at
about 1,500 feet. 1t was deep enough
to cross the Kittatinny mountains at
Delaware Water Gap. where it has left
on the top of the mountain large masses
| of limestone torn off from the youtcrop
in Godfreys ridge near Stroudsburg,
and therefore carried up by the ice a
! thousand feet. The ice was thick
| enough to move over the great high
| lands of the Pocono Mountain between
| Scranton and Stroudsburg more than
1000 feet above the sea. have no doubt
that the ice at Archibald was at least
|
| fragments of your coal measure rocks
| and of anthracite coal itself from some
of your exposed outcrops (eXposed at
| that time, but covered up with drift
| now from the bottom of the Lacka-
wanna valley to the top of Bald Noun
tain and that they now lie scattered
over the wilderness highland of the
| headwaters of the Lehigh river, and
that they will be discoyered there, If
ever railroad or other cuttings are
made through the drift ridges on that
| table land.
"lt would he we'll worth your while
to examine closely the cuts along the
line of the Delaware, Lackawanna &
Western Railroad for bits of anthracite
coal and conglomerate which have been
carried from Carbondale and Archibald,
and left there by the ice. Your discov-
cry happens to be one of the very finest
| illustrations of the subject which we
have had the good fortune to en-
| counter"
ANOTHER OPINION.
Prof ]. c. Branner, director OF the
geoglogica, survey Of Arkansas, has
also written about the pot-hole. He
says: These gigantic pot-holes at
| <AItIDdlu were lOTllbu DN Il stream OI
| considerable volume falling from an
elevation. for we know of no ordinary
stream capable of whirling the stones
into the bottom of this hole, without
| great velocity. The whole process
by which this hole was made may be
illustrated by placing in a smooth
glass tumbler a few angular pebbles
and then pouring into it stream of
4 .s..l.N
not great enough to throw the pebbles
from it. If the water is poured i'm u
regular stream the pebbles will he
seen to dance about and to be thrown
constantly against the sides of the
glass, at various angles and with
more or less force. If instead tf a
pitcher of water a constant stream is
allowed to fall into the glass for
week or more it will be found at the
end OF that time that the inside sur
face is dulled by the wearing and
scratching of the pebbles and the
pebbles themselves will have their
sharp angles somewhat rounded.
The height which the water fell
must necessarily be more or less a
matter of conjecture. 1t is clear that
the height could not have been so great
as TO disspate the falling water into
spray, for it would thus have lost to
great degree its wearing power. Neither
do the conditions require that the
water should have fallen perpendiCu-
larly; but simply that it should have
had force to keep in motion the grind
ing material inside the hole
J The fact that ice marks occur on
the SUBMITS of all the hills and noun
tains in this vicinity shows that the ice
was at one time not less than 1900 feet
thick Immediately above the pot-hola,
and 1,S00 feet thick above the village
of Archibald, while the probabilities are
that it was considerably thicker at the