414 Transactions of the American Institute. 



thousand feet higher than either the Blue Ridge, on the one hand, 

 or the Cumberland range on the other. They are mountains proper, 

 with the steepness, the rocky sides, the lonely and sterile summits, 

 the heavy and sombre clothing of hardy evergreens, which distin- 

 guishes Alpine scener^^ Blue Eidge is for the most part a line of 

 well-wooded and cultivable hills. But the Cumberland range dif- 

 fers from each of the others. It is neither a line of solitary mouu-v\ 

 tain peafe, nor a range of forest-crowned hills, but a broad plateau • 

 of table land lifted two thousand feet above the sea level. It i3 

 to this plateau of the Cumberland, as it appears throughout the 

 State of Tennessee, and in the Northern part of Alabama and 

 Georgia, that I would invite the attention of the Club, as affording 

 one of the most attractive regions, for a lai*ge class of settlers, of 

 any section in the Great Republic. 



Several circumstances combine to give the region of which I 

 speak a climate of unsurpassed healthfuluess. 



You observe that south of Mount Mitchell, in North Carolina, 

 the Alleghany ° range falls away, the peaks losing height, till in 

 Northern Georgia they should be spoken of rather as bold hills. 

 For this reason the warm breezes from the Caroliuas and the Gulf 

 coast are not interrupted as they are in that part of the range which 

 stretches through Kentucky and Virginia. There is a group of 

 hills in the southern part of Kentucky from which the northern 

 tributaries of the Cumberland river flow, which shields this plateau 

 from the sweep of northwest winds. Its elevation is moderate, in 

 no case exceeding two thousand feet. It stretches from northeast 

 to southwest in a southern latitude, the lower or southern edge of 

 this plateau being not over two hundred and twenty miles in a 

 right line from the Gulf of Mexico. It is at such a distance from 

 the sea, and from the waters of the great valley on the west, that 

 the rain clouds are often partially discharged before they drift that 

 far inland. Hence the rainfall, though sufficient for agricultural 

 purposes, is not excessive. 



The atmosphere is pure, dry and balm3^ The average summer 

 heat is about sixty-five degrees; that of winter cannot fall much 

 below forty-five degrees. There is no point east of the Rocky 

 momitains where the variation from summer heat to winter cold is 

 so moderate. There are few days in summer when the heat drives 

 the laborer to the shade at noontide, and few in winter Avhen he 

 requires an overcoat in going to his woodland labor. 



