Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/292

 have since seen in my father's notes that he had observed trees and shrubs upon the Yellow and Grandfather Mountains that he did not meet with again till he reached Low Canada.

As the only ideas given concerning the height of the Alleghanies are the result of observations taken in Virginia, we see, according to that short exposition, that we have but an inaccurate account; this induced me to point out the highest mountains where their true elevation might be ascertained. They are about three hundred and sixty miles from Charleston, in {261} South Carolina, and five hundred and fifty from Philadelphia.

The mineral kingdom is very little diversified in these mountains. The mines which have hitherto been found are chiefly those of iron. They are worked with success, and the iron which they derive from it is of an excellent quality.

In the mountainous parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia the land, frequently dry and flinty, is of an indifferent nature. Here, on the contrary, the soil far from being flinty, is perpetually moist, and very fertile. We may judge of it by the vegetable strength of the trees, among which we observed the red and black oak, the sugar-maple, the ash, the yellow-blossomed chesnut, or the magnolia acuminata and auriculata, and the common chesnut, which grows to a prodigious height. The side of these mountains that looks north is sometimes covered exclusively with the kalmia latifolia, or calico-tree, from twelve to fifteen feet high. They frequently occupy spaces of from two to three hundred acres, {262} which at a distance affords the aspect of a charming meadow. It is well known that this shrub excels every other in point of blossom.