XXXII.

And so these mines, and fields, and forests, remain to the present day, unsurveyed, unexplored and unknown, save to a few wanderers of science.

In Northern Alabama, where the terminating slopes of this upheaval of rocks disappear beneath the level of the vast cotton fields, which number their acres by the million, there appear enormous deposits of iron ore, of extraordinary richness and depth, lying in juxtaposition with corresponding beds of limestones and coal.

Here is alone sufficient material for the iron fingers and forges and the steam power to fabricate the vegetable growths, the harvests of the vast and fertile plains of the entire South, and to build up with enduring form those great and thriving cities which are seen in the dim vista of the future of the Mississippi Valley, with its hundred millions of people. These elevations, when denuded of their immense primeval forests of pine and oak, will be covered with constant verdure, affording sure sustenance to numberless flocks and herds of kine, which will require less care than the cattle of the plains of Texas or the pampas of Peru, since Nature, with her caverns and narrow valleys, will afford shelter from the destructive storms of winter and the chilling blasts of spring.

Between the two great spurs of the divided mountain range which encompass the head-waters and tributaries of the Tennessee, appears the garden spot of the Republic: the soils, enriched by the decomposition of the blue limestones, are here of great strength and endurance; the innumerable streams are of sufficient force and volume to satisfy the wants of industry and mechanics, whilst the lofty mountains, which rise to the height of seven thousand feet above the ocean, with their broad and impressive shadows, temper the atmospheres, so that the body can labor and the mind expand.

To the natural beauties of the landscape art has yet added nothing: from the teeming harvests of the valleys, from the massive ledges of minerals, man has yet detracted nothing.

Nature here is almost inexhaustible.

No wonder that the dying Indian returns to the region of the Hiwassee to end his days on earth, impelled by an irresistible desire to behold once more the wonders and beauties of natural scenery, which are preserved among the fading traditions of the tribes that have been banished to the far off western frontiers.