ADDRESS. 



In the year 1825, in tlie city of Raleigli, while a member 

 of the Legislature from the County of Buncombe, I was in« 

 troduced to the late John C. Calhoun, then Vice-President 

 of the United States. After a playful allusion to my height, 

 which he said corresponded with his own and that of Gen- 

 eral Washington, he remarked that we could also congrat^ 

 ulate ourselves on the circumstance, that we resided in the 

 neighborhood of the highest mountain on the continent,, 

 east of the Rocky Mountains. 



The suggestion took me entirely by surprise, and I in^ 

 quired whether the fact had been ascertained. He replied, 

 not by measurement, but that a very slight examination of 

 the map of the United States, would satisfy me it was 

 so. That I would find among the mountains of Bun- 

 combe, the head-springs of one of the great tributaries 

 of the Mississippi, flowing into the gulf of Mexico ; of the 

 Kenhawa, entering the Ohio ; and of the Santee and Pee- 

 dee, emptying into the Atlantic. That these were the 

 longest rivers in the United States, east of the Rocky moun- 

 tains, finding their way in opposite directions to the ocean, 

 and that the point of greatest elevation, must be at their 

 sources. 



In June, 1830, in company with the late Governor Owen, 

 and other members of the Board of Internal Improvements 

 of the State, I descended the Cape Fear river from Haywood 

 to Fayetteville. Professor Mitchell of the University^ 

 availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded for a geo- 



