60 ESSAYS. 
Balsam afforded excellent materials for the construction of 
our lodge; the smaller twigs with large mats of moss stripped 
from the rocks furnished our bed, and the dead trees supplied 
us with fuel for cooking our supper and for the large fire we 
were obliged to keep up during the night. We re-ascended 
the summit the next morning, and devoted several hours to 
its examination ; but the threatening state of the weather pre- 
vented us from visiting the adjacent ridges, or the southern 
and eastern faces of the mountain, and we were constrained 
to descend towards evening to the humble dwelling of our 
guide, which we reached before the impending storm com- 
menced. 
Our next excursion was to the Roan Mountain, a portion 
of the elevated range which forms the boundary between 
North Carolina and Tennessee, distant nearly thirty miles 
southwest from our quarters at the foot of Grandfather by 
the most direct path, but at least sixty by the nearest car- 
riage road. We traveled for the most part on foot, loading 
the horses with our portfolios, paper, and some necessary lug- 
gage, crossed the Hanging-rock Mountain to Elk Creek, and 
thence over a steep ridge to Cranberry Forge, on the sources 
of Doe River, where we passed the night. On our way we 
cut down a Service-tree (as the Amelanchier Canadensis is 
here called), and feasted upon the ripe fruit, which through- 
out this region is highly, and indeed justly prized, being 
sweet with a very agreeable flavor; while in the northern 
States, so far as our experience goes, this fruit, even if it 
may be said to be edible, is not worth eating. As ‘“ Sarvices” 
are here greedily sought after, and are generally procured by 
cutting down the trees, the latter are becoming scarce in the 
vicinity of the “ plantations,” as the mountain settlements are 
universally called. Along the streams we met with the moun- 
tain species of Andromeda (Leucothoé), doubtless Pursh’s 
A. avillaris ; but whether the original A. axillaris of the 
“Hortus Kewensis” pertains to this or to the species of the 
low country, I cannot at this moment ascertain. A portion 
of Pursh’s character seems also to belong to the low country 
rather than to the mountain species, and the two are by no 
