MOUNT MITCHELL 303 
used to be the Black Dome, a name poetical and pro- 
foundly descriptive. When near enough, perhaps 
on some neighboring slope or summit, the balsam- 
covered mountains are impressive to solemnity. 
The dark, unbroken mantle of fir trees covering all 
heights and hollows throws back the light with 
singular depth and softness, the color varying from 
deepest green to inky black, in which lie intense 
indigo shadows. 
The range of the Black Mountains, which is only 
fifteen miles in length, has, it will be remembered, 
thirteen summits above six thousand feet high. 
This short, high range, standing on a base less than 
five miles wide, its slopes sweeping up from either 
side to the crests more than three thousand feet 
above the surrounding valley bottoms, is, wherever 
visible, the most notable feature in the landscape. 
It runs north and south, its southern extremity 
merging Into the Blue Ridge, which here, in its very 
irregular windings, comes so close to the Black 
Mountains as to leave only a narrow and deep val- 
ley, that of the South Toe River, between. Two 
of the highest points of the Blue Ridge, Graybeard 
and the Pinnacle, noted landmarks, lie close to the 
Blacks. 
To the southwest of the Black Mountains, practi- 
cally a continuation of them, lies the short high 
chain of the Great Craggy Mountains In which 
Craggy Dome and Bullhead Mountain rise, in the 
one case a little above six thousand feet. In the other, 
a little below. To the west of the Black Mountain 
