NOTES.
1 "Its roughly-guarded pass."
The Susquehannah, after entering Luzerne county, Penn., breaks into the valley of Wyoming, near the mouth of the Lackawana, through a narrow mountain chasm, rendered rugged by perpendicular rocks, and after pursuing a serpentine course, for twenty miles, breaks again out of the valley, at a similar pass, called the "Nanticoke gap."
2 "The landscape hath a legend:"
The battle fought on the 3d of July, 1778, between the Americans, under the command of Col. Zebulon Butler, and the British, led on by Col. John Butler, and a Chieftain of mixed blood, named Brandt, is sometimes styled both in history and poetry, the "Wyoming massacre."
Were gather'd by their sons."
"The occasion of our assembling in this spot, is one of no common interest: to witness the re-interment of the mutilated bones of our ancestors, and to perform the grateful duty of laying the corner-stone of their monument. This work of gratitude is destined, in the language of the eloquent Webster, to 'rise till it meet the sun in his coming,—till the earliest light of morning shall gild it, and the parting day linger and play upon its summit.'"—Oration of Chester Butler, Esq., on laying the corner-stone of the Wyoming monument, July 3d, 1833.
4 "The slumbering Anthracite."
The beautiful vale of Wyoming is distinguished by the anthracite coal formation. This valuable mineral, as exhibited in that region, is unsurpassed in richness and brilliancy, and in quantity apparently inexhaustible.
5 "A white-brow'd stranger."
Count Zinzendorff, a nobleman of Saxony, the restorer of the ancient church of the United Brethren, or Moravians, performed a mission to the Indians of Wyoming, in the year 1742, He is asserted to have been the first white person who had ever visited that portion of the Shawanese and Delaware tribes, who held dominion in the valley.
6 "The woad-stain'd Briton, in his wattled boat."
The boats of the ancient Britons were composed of basket-work, covered with the skins of beasts. So much were these baskets admired in Rome, and such quantities were exported there, that one of their satirical poets ridicules them as among the luxuries of his countrymen, more than a hundred years after the conquest of the British isles.
