4 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



unexpected discoveries among the laws and the phenomena which 

 he had been studying for years as they appeared. While others 

 were busy in prophesying revolutions in social or political econ- 

 omy, he was quietly awaiting the decisions of experience. He 

 constantly taught his pupils that there were things wherein 

 they must turn from the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so 

 sweetly. His influence on the developments of science was emi- 

 nently conservative, for he loved the old landmarks." 



Prof. Mitchell's general fame rests chiefly on his work in the 

 exploration of the Black Mountain of North Carolina, a spur 

 which, standing between the main mountain ridges, had been 

 regarded by persons best acquainted with the region, without 

 knowing its exact height, as the culminating point of the Appa- 

 lachian system. The two Michauxes had remarked, about the 

 beginning of the century the elder in 1799, and the younger in 

 1802 the presence of Alpine plants there that were not found 

 again south of Canada, and inferred that the peak must therefore 

 surpass all its fellows in height. John C. Calhoun had come to a 

 similar conclusion, from the observation of the streams that had 

 their source on the mountain. Meeting the Hon. David L. Swain, 

 who was afterward President of the university, in 1825, Mr. Cal- 

 houn congratulated him on being of the same height with Wash- 

 ington and himself, and on their both residing in the neighbor- 

 hood of the highest mountain on the continent east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. When asked the meaning of his remark, Mr. Calhoun 

 referred to the map as showing that in this group were to be 

 found the highest sources of one of the great tributaries of the 

 Mississippi, the Tennessee ; of the Kanawha, flowing northward 

 into the Ohio ; and of the Santee and Pedee, which run directly 

 to the Atlantic all considerable rivers finding their way to the 

 sea in opposite directions. The story was told by Governor Swain 

 to Prof. Mitchell in 1830, during an excursion on the Cape Fear 

 River. Although Mr. Calhoun's reasoning was defective, his 

 observation, coupled with the opinion expressed on other grounds 

 by the Michauxes, impressed Prof. Mitchell, and aroused a desire 

 in him to know more of the Black Mountain, and to determine its 

 height. The opportunity came in 1835. The memorandum-book 

 in which the notes of his visit in that year are recorded contains 

 such entries as " Objects of Attention Geology ; Botany ; Height 

 of the Mountains ; Positions by Trigonometry ; Woods, as the 

 Fir, Spruce, Magnolia, Birch ; Fish, especially Trout ; Springs ; 

 Biography " ; etc. He was accompanied by his daughter, and car- 

 ried " two barometers, a quadrant, a vasculum for plants, and a 

 hammer for rocks/' The incidents of this expedition, the details 

 of which became important in the case of a controversy that after- 

 ward arose, have been summarized and confirmed by the testi- 



