284 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



showing that in this group were to be found the highest sources 

 of one of the great tributaries of the Mississippi, the Tennes- 

 see ; of the Kanawha, flowing northward into the Ohio ; and of 

 the Santee and Pedee, which run directly to the Atlantic all 

 considerable rivers rinding their way to the sea in opposite di- 

 rections. 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 observa- 

 tion, 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; Bot- 

 any ; 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 carried " two barometers, a quadrant, a vascu- 

 lum 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 afterward arose, have been summarized 

 and confirmed by the testimony of witnesses in an article which 

 Prof. Charles Phillips contributed to the North Carolina Uni- 

 versity Magazine for March, 1858. Having made some obser- 

 vations of the geological formations of the Grandfather Moun- 

 tain, and measured some heights near Morgantown, Prof. 

 Mitchell crossed the Blue Ridge and fixed his headquarters at 

 Bakersville, in Yancey County, near the foot of Roan Moun- 

 tain. From here he made several excursions in a country which 

 was then nearly in the condition of the primitive wilderness. 

 Being told that Yeates's Mountain was the highest of the group, 

 he climbed it, accompanied by two guides, on the 2;th of July, 

 1835 a day so clear and serene " that all the main eminences 

 of the Black were clearly visible." He found that this moun- 

 tain was overtopped by several of the peaks around it, the most 

 of which confronted him in an arc so curved that it was easy 

 to decide which of them was the highest. He made the entry : 

 " Top of Yeates's knob ; N. E. knob of Black bore N. 46^ E. 

 Counting from Young's knob : one low one ; one low one; two 

 in one, the southernmost pointed ; a round knob, same height ; 

 a double knob ; then the highest ; then a long, low place with a 



