ARCHIBALD POTHOLE

I had been in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area less than a year and had already seen several advancements in coal mining. There are all sorts of machinery that they use to extract the coal from this good earth. Maybe we can talk about that some day.

I was lucky to have hopped off the train in Scranton while I was on my wanderings out of New York City. Lucky for two reasons; first - - - I found a job right away as a railroad dick, and second - - - there were so many things to see out here in the hinterlands of the United States.

This picture shows another miracle. Not a manmade one like the Starucca Viaduct but one made by God or whoever is running the show here on earth.

This is a pothole made during the ice age. It is thirty-eight feet deep and forty feet wide. The story is that melting glacial water ran over this land and picked up stones. The stones found a depression and the water made an eddy in it. Over years and years of doing this the stones and water bored a hole in the bedrock.

But when man appeared on this area of earth the pothole was hidden. It had filled up with all those rocks, stones and water. Earth eventually covered most of it and trees grew. The natural bowl filled with water - - - never to be seen again; untill - - - - -

The coal mines, as I said before, were going strong. Some fellows drilled a hole at the head of the mine they were working. They set off some dynamite. Instead of coal they were surprised to be chased up the mine shaft by water, rocks bolders and dead trees.

They had blown a hole right into the bottom of the glacial pothole.

Well, it was not hidden any longer. It emptied all of its contents out into that mine shaft.

Everyone is claiming the pothole. The towns of Archibald, Mayfield and Eynon are all trying to lay claim to its fame. I guess whoever is collecting taxes on that land is going to own bragging rights. But then that raises another question. Who is paying the taxes? The owner of the surface or the owner of the mine?

Ah, politics, arn't they great?

©W. Tomosky♠