USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > History of Schuylkill County, Pa. with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 7
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The Mahanoy mountain "is next in order of succession, and becomes interesting as the southern wall of the mid- dle coal field. It is lower than the Broad mountain, and in general features bears a striking resemblance to Sharp mountain, which is the southern wall of the Potts- ville basin. It has but two gorges in the county, both near Ashland, where the Mahanoy creek and Big run have broken through and eroded it to its bases. Leav- ing the line of Schuylkill county it sweeps off to the west and unites with Big mountain in Northumberland county, which forms the northern edge of the sharp pointed, canoe-shaped basin of the middle coal field. The strata of Mahanoy mountain are nearly vertical, and, as it contains the great vein of the coal measures, this position has made it difficult to work, and a vast amount of waste has resulted; but the quantity of coal taken out above water level has been greater than from any other mountain range, and below water level its yield is still very great. Between this and the Locust mountain, several ridges have been thrown up, bearing the local names of Locust ridge, Bear ridge, etc., but
they do not extend very far, and may be regarded as spurs, formed out of the higher range by erosion. They have no other distinction than as favorable sites for collieries.
The Locust mountain extends from Northumberland county into the northern portion of Schuylkill, where it soon acquires the local name of North Mahanoy, and forms the northern boundary of its coal. Many valuable collieries are located upon its southern slopes, near Shen- andoah city, from the royalties of which the Girard Trust derives a large income annually. The lands of all this section of the county are only valuable for the coal they contain. No other mineral deposits have ever been found, and they have long since been stripped of their timber which, thirty years ago, was exceedingly heavy and valuable. The washings from the mountain slopes were mostly carried away by the swollen floods, and left no fertilizing properties in the soil for the agriculturist. The same is true of all the southern coal fields. From the Second mountain north there are not a dozen farms worth cultivating as an investment, and the great wonder is that any man could ever be induced to enter the region for such a purpose; and it is more than probable that the few who have made agriculture a business were at- tracted here first by other considerations. Between the Second and Blue mountains, and beyond the bounds of the coal formation, in the extreme western and northern angles of the county, the valleys are wider, and the streams which flow through them less turbulent, and there the farmer has some hope of reward for his labor; but if all he has expended were charged against the land, and it were credited with what it has produced, the average balances to profit and loss would be on the debtor side.
The streams of this county are numerous, and some of them, like the Schuylkill, the Little Schuylkill, the Swa- tara and Mahanoy, have wide beds of sufficient depth to carry large bodies of water; but while the rainfall is equal to or greater than that in many parts of the State, the sources are near, and at great elevations, and the ac- cumulations from rainfalls and melting snows are sud- denly precipitated into the beds of the streams and car- ried away in floods, and the fall is nearly as sudden as the rise. Under such conditions no water power can be utilized for extensive manufacturing, and none has been attempted. Saw-mills and grist-mills, and here and there a powder-mill, and a small manufactory of woolen goods, are the only industries utilizing the vast bodies of water flowing from the water sheds of this county. Some portion of the surplus waters has been stored up by the erection of the Tumbling run and Silver creek reservoirs, to supply the Schuylkill canal with sufficient water to keep the coal tonnage afloat during the dry sea- son which usually prevails every year, from the causes here stated; and also in the smaller ones built to secure the necessary quantity for the towns and the great num- bers of steam engines employed in mining, preparing and transporting anthracite coal.
In geological structure this county belongs to the Upper Silurian and Devonian systems, and above these is the
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34
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
Carbonaceous formation, which makes it one of the rich- est areas in the world. The eroding action of the streams bursting from the mountain sides, while carrying away a vast amount of the rich deposits, opened to the eye of the casual observer the seams of coal, and afforded the most economical means of getting it out and trans- porting it to market. Through all the earlier years of mining operations, the explorer was governed in his choice of location entirely by topographical considera- tions. The indentations of the mountain slopes, caused by the melting snows and frequent rains of the early spring, when the ground is rendered porous by up- heaving frosts, and easily cut away, showed him where to begin his "drift " upon a vein of coal with a cer- tainty of development by the least expenditure of capital.
From what has been said here it will be seen that the topography of Schuylkill county has resulted mainly from its geological structure. The mountains and val. leys are not eroded from some vast plateau through the lapse of immeasurable time, like the topographical irregularities of the great western slopes, but were sud- denly moved forward and upward from the depths of the ocean by the tremendous forces of the earth's in- ternal fires; and when these were expended, and the folding strata had settled into a state of comparative rest, the outline of the elevations and depressions ap- peared much as at present. The process of rounding their sharper angles, and clothing them with wild, im- penetrable forests and the beautiful flora that made the early summer rosy and charming, was the work of after ages.
Standing upon the rocky edges of almost any one of the deep gorges, the observer has grand and sublime scenery in his immediate presence; and before him, looking east and west, there are long stretches of beau- tiful landscape, diversified by low hills studded with trees whose green foliage stirred by the passing breeze shimmers in the summer light; by quiet homesteads and cultivated fields waving before the eyes of the hus- bandman the glad promise of reward for fruitful labor, and here and there by the glimmer of meandering streams.
CHAPTER IV.
GEOLOGY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
BY P. W. SHEAFER, Geologist and Mining Engineer, Pottsville, Pa.
CHUYLKILL County lies east and south of the center of the State, and in the eastern belt of the Appalachian system of mountains. Its irregular boundaries enclose an area of about 767 square miles, an area as uneven and varied as can be found in Pennsylvania.
eleven hundred feet above the valleys, or to a height of one thousand to seventeen hundred feet above tide, broken in their continuity by gaps com- pletely intersecting them at irregular intervals. Between these ranges are lower elevations, or hills, more or less nearly parallel with them, and these, united to each other by cross ridges, give to the surface an extremely broken and rugged appearance.
The most southern of these ranges is the Kittatinny or Blue mountain, which, forming the entire southern boundary of the county, runs in a northeasterly direction, broken only at the Port Clinton gap, where the Schuyl- kill river has worn its way through the massive rocky strata.
An undulating valley, varying in width, separates this range from the double crested chain of Second moun- tain. Still further north, across a narrow red shale val- ley, is the third range, Sharp mountain. These two ranges, everywhere within the county limits, run parallel to the Blue mountain; but beyond the eastern boundary, along the Lehigh, and beyond the western, along the Susquehanna, they turn back, or double sharply on their courses, receiving other names, and again pursue a northeasterly direction.
Broad and Locust mountains are the continuations of Sharp mountain, in its sweep around the southern coal field,and Mahanoy mountain is but an extension of Broad, as it zig-zags around the middle coal field. North of these last ranges the mountains are more broken and show less distinctly the general course. A remarkable feature of these ranges is the uniformity of level of their crests.
The gaps in these mountains form prominent and im- portant features in the general landscape; narrow, steep- sided and rocky, with but room enough for streams and roads at their bottoms, they either cut through the entire thickness of mountain wall, or penetrate so far into the rocky mass as to afford a practical grade to the sum- mits of the highest elevations.
As before mentioned, there is but one break in the Blue mountain with in the county limits, through which flow the waters of the Schuylkill. This is the only prac- ticable pass for the immense traffic of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and the Schuylkill Navigation Company's Canal. But proceeding northward we find these natural gates to increase in number, there being no less than five in Second mountain, and eight in Sharp mountain, along the south edge of the southern coal field in this county.
The drainage of the county is into the Schuylkill, Susquehanna and Lehigh rivers. The first named stream, through its main and west branches, and the Little Schuylkill, drain the great middle area of the county, including the greater portion of the southern basin; the Swatara, Wiconisco, Mahantongo and Mahanoy creeks, tributaries of the main branch, and the Cata- wissa, an affluent of the north branch of the Susquehan- na, the western and northern parts; and the Lehigh, by
The topography of this region is marked by several mountain chains, rising from six hundred to means of Nesquehoning, Mahoning and Lizard creeks, a
GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
35
small area along the eastern edge of the county. The streams which flow in a northerly or southerly direction, thus cutting across the strike of the formation, expose to view the rock strata, and afford the geologist excellent opportunities for studying their character and measuring their thicknesses. The valley of the Schuylkill from Port Clinton to Pottsville is lined by rock exposure, and in this distance of sixteen miles nine great formationsare crossed.
The geological structure of the county can be best indicated by describing, in a general way, a cross section drawn through Pottsville, from the Blue mountain, on the south, to the Catawissa valley, on the north. Begin- ning at the south, we find a shallow basin bounded by the north dipping rocks of Blue mountain, and on the north by a prominent anticlinal axis, passing through Orwigsburg and Schuylkill Haven, which gradually dies out, both to the east and the west.
Between Schuylkill Haven and Pottsville we encounter only the north dips of this axis, standing vertically, and in Sharp and Second mountains, overturned slightly, so as to show a south dip. Then we cross the broad basin of the southern coal field, with its many subordinate flexures, which is separated from a more shallow trough by the great anticlinal of Broad mountain. North of this basin is a broad and undulating elevation, traversed by several parallel minor axes. Sections through other parts of the county would show local variations from this general structure, but there would remain the promi- nent features of three parallel basins, separated by two more or less elevated anticlinals.
The geological formations of Schuylkill county are con- fined to the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous ages of the Paleozoic system, and embrace from No. IV to No. XIII inclusive, of the following table, which shows the subdivisions of this system in Pennsylvania:
Penn. Numb's
Rogers (Pa. Geol.)
Lesley.
Carbonif- erous
XIII} XII XI
Umbral
PottsvilleConglomerate Mauch Chunk Red Shale Pocono Sandstone
IX
Ponent
Catskill Red Sandstone § Chemung
Vergent
¿ Portage ( Genesee
Devonian
VIII
Cadent
Hamilton - Hamilton Marcellus
VII VI
Pre Merid'n Lower Helderberg
(Lewistown Limestone.)
Upper Silurian
V
Surgent
§ Medina Sandstone
IV
Levant
Oneida Conglomerate
§ Hudson River
III
Matinal
? Utica
Lower Silurian
II
Auroral
Calciferous
I
Primal
Potsdam
thus following a geographical line which, at the same time, shows the formations in their regular order, from the older to the more recent, and culminating with the Carboniferous, the most important of this region.
No. II'. (Levant of Rogers ; Medina and Oneida of New York.)-This formation, in the central portion of Pennsylvania, is divided into three distinct parts in order of deposition-the Oneida Conglomerates, red and gray Medina sandstone. In this district, however, the middle or red group is wanting. The Blue or Kittantinny mountain, whose crest is the southern boundary of this county, is formed by the outcrop of the massive strata of the Medina Sandstone and Oneida Conglomerate. The area of the outcrop of these rocks is a limited one, being confined to these mountains; and the formation here dips beneath the surface, not to appear again within the county limits. Professor Rogers, in his geology of Penn- sylvania, records no measurements of these rocks within the county; but at the Lehigh Water Gap gives the fol- lowing thicknesses and description :
"Oneida Conglomerate. Alternations of coarse quartzose conglomerate and fine-grained white and gray sandstones-four hundred feet."
" Medina White Sandstone. A thick succession of alternating white sandstones and olive shales, the upper sandstones being mottled red and white, and containing characteristic marine vegetation-seven hundred and sixty feet."
These thicknesses and descriptions apply equally well to this county. No minerals or ores of any value occur in this formation, while the fossils are confined to im- pressions of large articulated marine plants.
No. V. (Surgent, Rogers; Clinton, New York.)-This formation consists of alternating deposits of red and olive shales and slates, separated by red sandstones, forming a characteristic red group of rocks of about fifteen hundred feet in thickness in this district. The lower belt of sandstones is called the "Ore Sandstones," on account of the beds of fossil iron ore it carries in the central part of the State. No such deposit of ore has been found within this county. Fucoids are common in some por- tions, while marine animal fossils characterize other parts. This group flanks the Blue mountain on the north, forn:ing the foot hills of this range throughout its north- eastern and southwestern course in the county. At the western end its north dip is steep so that it covers in width but a small area. To the eastward it gradually widens, changing from a monoclinal north dip to a succes- sion of rolls, a mile in width. At Port Clinton it follows the flexures of the Blue Mountain and widens out in a series of sharp rolls, beautifully exposed on the east bank of the Schuylkill river as far north as McKeansburg and Orwigsburg. The most northern flexure of this series carries a narrow band of this formation as far west as Schuylkill Haven, beyond which point the decline of the axis forces it beneath the surface. The western limit of these rolls lies to the east of Pine creek, which enters the Schuylkill at Auburn. East of McKeansburg
The surface geology can be best described by begin- ning at the southern limit of the county and going north, the belt of this formation again becomes narrow, and
Seral
§ Coal Measures
X
Vespertine
P't Merid'n Upper Helderberg Meridian Oriskany
j Water-lime Ceme't beds
Scalent
? Onondaga Marls Clinton
Trenton
36
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
follows the course of Blue mountain to the county line.
No. VI. (Scalent and Pre-Meridian, Rogers; Onondaga and Lower Helderberg, New York.)-This consists of two distinct groups, the lower composed of variegated marls and water lime cement beds, and the upper of a group of shaly and cherty limestones. The formation varies in thickness, at some points reaching twelve hun- dred feet, and at other places seems to be absent. The whole group is fossiliferous. The position of this formation in Schuylkill county is indicated on the geo- logical map of the first survey of Pennsylvania, as a nar- row belt overlying No. V, running parallel to the Blue mountain, as far east as Port Clinton, where its outcrop, influenced by the series of flexures which cross the Lit- tle Schuylkill river, runs northward, in a broken line, for some five miles. Here the Orwigsburg anticlinal carries the outcrops of both its north and south dips westward through Schuylkill Haven, until they join and disappear beneath the surface at Friedensburg. East of Orwigsburg, its north outcrop follows the line of the Blue mountain, defining the area of the red rocks of No. V, on the south side of Lizard Creek valley. The only member of the group which the first State survey recognizes and describes in this county is the Scalent, or cement limestone. It has been quarried at McKeansburg, Orwigsburg, where it is twenty feet thick, and at Schuylkill Haven.
No. VII. (Meridian, Rogers; Oriskany, New York.)- The Oriskany is described as a "coarse, yellowish, calca- reous sandstone, graduating near its upper limit into a fine-grained quartzose conglomerate, and becoming in its lower beds a coarse arenaceous limestone, characterized by Atrypa elongata, Spirifer arenosus, and other remark- able brachiopodus shells."
In the central portion of the State, near McVeytown and Huntingdon, it contains deposits of glass sand, and also, at places, an iron ore bed.
In Virginia, the top of this formation is marked by the well defined and valuable "Bluff " iron ores. The Oriskany is variable in thickness, and in many places seems to be wanting. The maximum thickness, on the Juniata, is one hundred and fifty feet.
Although No. VII has been recognized in Lehigh county, yet it has never been discovered or identified in Schuylkill county. Its place in the series is immediately over the limestone group of No. VI. This sandstone was much sought after, at one time, on the Lehigh, as it was well adapted to use in hearths of iron furnaces.
No. VIII. (Post-Meridian, Cadent, Vergent, Rogers ; Upper Helderberg, Hamilton, Portage, Chemung, New York.)-This formation, as shown in the foregoing table, includes several well defined groups of rocks, and con- sequently is very thick, reaching six thousand feet or more. The lowest member of the Post-Meridian group in New York is composed of the Cauda Galli and Schoharie Grits, but is not recognized in Pennsylvania. The upper Helderberg limestone is a blue, fossiliferous and, at times, sparry limestone, including cherty bands.
In the center of the State this reaches sixty feet in thick- ness, but it has not been found in this county, or along the Blue mountain west of the Delaware. The Cadent, or Hamilton group, consists of an upper and lower highly bituminons black slate deposit, separated by a mass of bluish, brownish and olive argillaceous shales, sometimes becoming an argillaceous sandstone, and has a thickness in the valley north of the Blue mountain of over one thousand feet. The Vergent flags, or Portage group, are composed of thin layers of fine grained gray sandstones, while the Vergent shales, or Chemung group, consist of gray, blue, and olive shales and sandstones.
These two groups abound in marine vegetation. The Vergent rocks on the Lehigh measure seventeen hundred and fifty feet. The black slates of No. VIII are, as before mentioned, highly bituminous and bear impres- sions of Carboniferous plants, and often times include beds of slate, resembling those of the true coal measures, thus leading many to make useless search for coal. The upper, or Chemung rocks of this formation, are those which enclose the famous Bradford oil sand of north- western Pennsylvania, from which the greater part of the American petroleum is now obtained. There is, how- ever, no evidence that the oil is co-extensive with the formation; and, besides, the present belief is that the oil is only found where the rocks have been but little disturbed from their original horizontal position. In this county the formation is much flexured and broken, and therefore would not warrant one in drilling for petro- leum. Some strata of these rocks furnish flags of ex- cellent quality for building purposes.
This formation in Schuylkill county is confined to the great valley lying between the Blue and Second moun- tains, and to a small area along the north branch of the Mahantongo creek, in the extreme northwestern corner of the county. The narrow valley between the above mountain ranges at the western county line widens rapidly to the eastward, increasing to four miles at Pine Grove, and five miles at Friedensburg. Here the Orwigsburg anticlinal, rising to the eastward, brings the rocks of No. VI to the surface, and divides the Chemung valley into two parts, the more southern of which, carrying a small area of Ponent rocks in the center, ends in the hills west of the Little Schuylkill. The narrow northern valley of Chemung continues east of Schuylkill Haven, and beyond McKeansburg, where the several axes of the Tamaqua mountain spread it over the valleys of Mahoning and Lizard creeks. This area, forty miles in length, with a width varying from two to six miles of hills and valleys, under- laid by the shales and sandstones of Nos. V, VI, VIII, and IX, is the farming region of the county, embrac- ing the townships of Pine Grove, Wayne, North and South Manheim, East and West Brunswick, and the southern portions of Blythe, Schuylkill and Rahn. It contains no minerals of commercial value.
The steep north dip of the northern out-crop of these rocks carries them far beneath the surface, only to appear again, as before mentioned, in the Mahantongo valley.
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GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
No. IX. (Ponent, Rogers ; Catskill, New York.)-This group of red shales and massive red and gray sand- stones marks the end of the Devonian age, and is the second red formation of Pennsylvania. On account of its being covered by the hard sandstone of No. X, it usually forms a part of a mountain ridge, often making one of the crests. In this section of the State, it is at least five thousand feet thick. It contains no valuable ores, and but few organic remains. The Cat- skill, in this county, is first found in the center of the synclinal between the Blue mountain and the Orwigsburg axis, where it covers a narrow belt, extending from the old canal tunnel, south of Landingville, west along the Swatara hills, to within five miles of Pine Grove. With the exception of the small area on the north flank of Mahantongo creek, the remainder of the area covered by the Catskill is confined to the flanks, mainly the southern, of Second and Mahoning mountains.
Beginning at the west county line, we can follow it eastward along the southern crest and side of Second mountain, to the Little Schuylkill, and beyond to the head waters of Lizard creek ; thence around a series of sharp folds to where it again takes its easterly course, forming the north wall of the Mahoning valley.
No. X. (Vespertine, Rogers ; Pocono Gray Sandstone, Lesley.)-This formation begins the Carboniferous age, being the first to show any defined coal beds, or to con- tain workable coals. Rogers describes it as composed of "white, gray and yellow sandstones, alternating with coarse silicious conglomerates, and dark blue and olive colored slates. It frequently contains beds of black car- boniferous slate, with one or more thin seams of coal." Plant remains are its only fossils. In Virginia it includes several workable beds of anthracite coal, but in Penn- sylvania no coal beds of value have been found. The Pocono rocks, as well as the Ponent,are well exposed in the gaps of the Schuylkill, in Second mountain, standing ver- tically, or with their north dip overturned. The Pocono, here, is eighteen hundred feet thick, and increases westward, attaining the thickness of twenty-six hundred feet beyond the Susquehanna. The geographical ex- tent of the Pocono is the same as that of the Catskill, already described, since it forms with it the Second and Mahantongo mountains. Flanked on the one side by the red rocks of No. IX, and on the other by the red shales of No. XI, it surrounds the coal basin with a pic- turesque red and white wall.
No. XI. ( Umbral, Rogers ; Mauch Chunk Red Shale, Lesley.)-This, the third red formation of Pennsylvania, consists of red shales and sandstones, often containing beds of olive and green shale, and in some portions of the State a limestone belt. In this county it is composed mainly of red argillaceous sandstones and shales, and has a thickness of three thousand feet. It often shows the presence of carbonate of lime, and thin streaks of poor limestone, but contains no division which can be compared with the mountain limestone of the South.
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