LINVILLE FALLS 341 
land is torn by ravines. For we are now on the outer 
side of the Blue Ridge adjoining the peculiarly wild 
foothill country, and whether the Linville River 
breaks through the wall of the Blue Ridge depends 
upon whether you consider the narrow Linville 
Mountain a part of the Blue Ridge or a part of the 
foothills, for it is over the upper edge of the deep 
gorge that separates Linville Mountain from a high 
ridge of the foothills that the river makes its escape. 
But however geology may decide the matter, in 
appearance the Linville Mountain belongs to the 
Blue Ridge, and one always thinks of it as ending 
the mountain plateau at that point. 
Across the clearing, at the end of the rough road 
that leads to the falls, stands a house on the very 
brink of the precipice. As you approach it, the thun- 
der of the water grows louder: you have a sense of 
Hearing some catastrophe in nature. At the brink 
the mountain stops short without the slightest 
preparatory slope, without a buttressing spur. It 
drops in an upright wall, along the face of which a 
path descends through the rhododendrons that have 
grown along a narrow ledge. Down the path you 
take your way. At a certain point in it you can step 
out on the top of a large rock and see the river raging 
between cleft walls directly below you. As you con- 
tinue the steep descent beyond here, rhododendrons 
offer you long, curved arms to hold by, and lend you 
their roots to step on. Finally, you jump down to a 
broad stone floor, and before you in its bed of solid 
rock lies the large pool of the upper falls into which 
