THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 303 



US to the highest point. The top is level for eight (8) or ten (10) 

 yards, and on it the balsam-fir tree still retains its place, though short- 

 ened to the height of only twenty (20) feet. On the right hand there 

 runs oif, in the direction of Toe river, a ridge which slowly descends 

 to that stream, distant some six ((i) or seven (7) miles. It is thus 

 easy to identity this peak, and its approach is no longer difficult. 



From the head of the Swannonoah, at Mr. Steps', where an angler 

 can find speckled trout, there is an easy way to the Mountain House, 

 built by Mr. William Patton, of Charleston, South Carolina. Its 

 present occupant will provide one with pleasant lodgings, and, what 

 mountain journeys render so welcome, all such comforts "■ for the 

 inner man" as this region affords, with fresh salmon from Scotland, 

 and champagne from France, to make them go down easily. After 

 resting here awhile, at the height of five thousand four hundred and 

 sixty (5,460) feet above the sea-level, two miles of travel on horse- 

 back, as hundreds of ladies can testify, will bring you to the top of 

 Mount Mitcliell. 



When one is upon this peak, he appears to be on a centre, from 

 which there run off five immense mountain chains. To the north- 

 ward stretches the main ledge of the Black, with a succession of cones 

 and spires along its dark crest. On its right, from the far northeast, 

 from the Keystone State, across the entire breadth of Virginia, seem- 

 ingly from an immeasurable distance, comes the long line of the Blue 

 Kidge or Alleghany ; but when it passes almost under him, it is com- 

 paratively so much depressed as scarcely to be perceptible, save where 

 at the point of junction, stimulated by the presence of its gigantic 

 neighbor, it shoots up into a pinnacle so steep, that, to use a hunter's 

 phrase, it would ''make a buzzard's head swim, if he were to attempt 

 to fly over it." Thence it runs southerly, till it touches South 

 Carolina, when it turns to the west, and is soon hidden behind col- 

 lossal masses that obstruct further vision in that direction. As the 

 chain of the Black sweeps around westwardly, it is suddenly parted 

 into two immense branches, which run off in opposite courses. The 

 northern terminates in a^ majestic pile, with a crown-like summit, 

 and numerous spurs from its base ; while to the south there leads off 

 the long ridge of Craggy, with its myriads of gorgeous flowers, its 

 naked slopes and fantastic peaks, over which dominates its great 

 dome, challenging, in its altitude, ambitious comparison with the 

 Black itself. 



_ Let the observer then lift his eye to a remote distance, and take a 

 circuit in the opposite direction. Looking to the southeast and to 

 the east, he sees, beyond King's Mountain, and others less known to 

 fame, the plain of the two Carolinas stretched out over a field of illim- 

 itable space, in color and outline indistinguishable from the '■ azure 

 brow" of the calm ocean. Nearer to him, to the northeast, over the 

 Linville Mountain, stands squarely upright the Table Rock, with its 

 perpendicular faces ; and its twin brother, the " Hawk-bill," with its 

 curved beak of over-hanging rock, and neck inclined, as if in the act 

 to stoop down on the plain below. Further on there rises in solitary 

 grandeur the rocky tlirone of the abrupt and wild Grandfather. Thig 

 "ancient of days" was long deemed the "monarch of mountains," 



