ELTSHA ^IITCHELL SCiEXTIFlC SOCIETY. 1% 



sissippi. This conjec.ture was warranted by their finding among 

 those heights Alpine plants which they had not seen south of Can- 

 nda. So when, in 1830. Dr. Mitchell learned from Gov. Swain that 

 Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, entertained the same opinion, 

 because from that region rivers tlov> to all points of the compass, 

 he resolved to verify these speculations by inimediate and instru- 

 mental observations. But it was 1835 before he <?ould begin to exe- 

 <Mite the plan he proposed for this verification. Michaux, the 

 younger, had asserted that the Grandfather Mountain, which he 

 climbed in 1704, and on the top of which he sang the Marsellais , 

 was, ''lAiplus liaute Montague detoute V Amerique Septentrionale.^^ 

 But Dr. Mitchell differed from the great Frenchman, and prepared 

 to measure the Black Mountain by selecting its highest peak from 

 Yeates' Knob, as did Pr >f. Guyot afterwards, in 1856. On the next 

 •day, July 28th, 1835, he ascertained the height of this peak, and in 

 the same year published that it w^as "5,508 feet above Morgcmton, 

 or 6,476 feet above the level of the sea''; Morganton being then 

 thought to be 968 feet above the same level. Since 1835, Morganton 

 has been found to be 1,200 feet above that base. So the measure of 

 Mitchell's peak in 1835 should be regarded as 6,708 feet. The other 

 measures of the same peak have been, by Dr. Mitchell, in 1844^ 

 6,672 feet; by Gen. Clingman, in 1855, 6,941 feet; by Prof. Guyot, 

 in 1856, 6,701 feet; by Major James Wilson, (with a spirit level) in 

 1857, 6,711 feet; and by the U. S. Coast Survey, 6,688 feet. 



Dr. Mitchell measured other mountains in 1835, viz: Table Rock, 

 The Grandfather, Yeates' Knob, Young's Knob, and the Roan. He 

 visited the Black Mountain again in 1838, in 1844, in 1856, and in 1857, 

 limiting his visit each year by the length of his summer vacation. 

 In no one of these visits did he, or could he do all he wanted to do, 

 or all he ought to have done. Hence he became doubtful concern- 

 ing what he did in 1835 thinking that his guides had not led him to 

 the peak he chose from Yeates' Knob. And he lost his life in at- 

 tempting to dispel the doubts that were in his own mind, but almost 

 no where else. Those who wish to see the evidence respecting the 

 measuring of Mitchell's Peak in 1835 will find it in the number of 

 the "University Magazine" for March, 1858, and in the Memoir of 

 Dr. Mitchell published at Chapel Hill in the fall of the same year. 

 At this time, when there are foot-paths and bridle-paths to almost 

 every mountan height in North Carolina, it is ditiicult to realize the 

 hardships undergone by Dr. Mitchell in 1835. The measuring of a 

 mountain often cost him a suit of clothes, that of July, 1835, cost 

 him a week's hard work besides. His way was often to where the 



