What a magnificent forest! Oaks, chestnuts, Poplars, hemlocks, the cucumber (a species of magnolia, with a pinkish, cucumber-like cone), and all sorts of northern and southern growths meeting here in splendid array.And this gigantic forest, with little diminution in size of trees, continued two thirds of the way up.We marked, as we went on, the maple, the black walnut, the buckeye, the hickory, the locust, and the guide pointed out in one section the largest cherry-trees we had ever seen; splendid trunks, each worth a large sum if it could be got to market.After the great trees were left behind, we entered a garden of white birches, and then a plateau of swamp, thick with raspberry bushes, and finally the ridges, densely crowded with the funereal black balsam.
Halfway up, Big Tom showed us his favorite, the biggest tree he knew.
It was a poplar, or tulip.It stands more like a column than a tree, rising high into the air, with scarcely a perceptible taper, perhaps sixty, more likely a hundred, feet before it puts out a limb.
Its girth six feet from the ground is thirty-two feet! I think it might be called Big Tom.It stood here, of course, a giant, when Columbus sailed from Spain, and perhaps some sentimental traveler will attach the name of Columbus to it.
In the woods there was not much sign of animal life, scarcely the note of a bird, but we noticed as we rode along in the otherwise primeval silence a loud and continuous humming overhead, almost like the sound of the wind in pine tops.It was the humming of bees! The upper branches were alive with these industrious toilers, and Big Tom was always on the alert to discover and mark a bee-gum, which he could visit afterwards.Honey hunting is one of his occupations.
Collecting spruce gum is another, and he was continually hacking off with his hatchet knobs of the translucent secretion.How rich and fragrant are these forests! The rhododendron was still in occasional bloom' and flowers of brilliant hue gleamed here and there.
The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing worse for the horses.Occasionally it was safest to dismount and lead them up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it was difficult to keep them from treading on our heels, in their frantic flounderings, in the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path.
At one uncommonly pokerish place, where the wet rock sloped into a bog, the rider of Jack thought it prudent to dismount, but Big Tom insisted that Jack would "make it" all right, only give him his head.
The rider gave him his head, and the next minute Jack's four heels were in the air, and he came down on his side in a flash.The rider fortunately extricated his leg without losing it, Jack scrambled out with a broken shoe, and the two limped along.It was a wonder that the horses' legs were not broken a dozen times.
As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half mile away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a ledge of rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life.Big Tom was the guide that found his body.That day, as we sat on the summit, he gave in great detail the story, the general outline of which is well known.
The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was made in 1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics and chemistry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mr.Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, born in Washington, Litchfield County, in 1793; graduated at Yale, ordained a Presbyterian minister, and was for a time state surveyor; and became a professor at Chapel Hill in 1818.He first ascertained and published the fact that the Black Mountains are the highest land east of the Rocky Mountains.In 1844 he visited the locality again.
Measurements were subsequently made by Professor Guyot and by Senator Clingman.One of the peaks was named for the senator (the one next in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman on the state map), and a dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really visited and measured the highest peak.Senator Clingman still maintains that he did not, and that the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that Clingman first described.The estimates of altitudes made by the three explorers named differed considerably.The height now fixed for Mount Mitchell is 6711; that of Mount Washington is 6285.There are twelve peaks in this range higher than Mount Washington, and if we add those in the Great Smoky Mountains which overtop it, there are some twenty in this State higher than the granite giant of New Hampshire.
In order to verify his statement, Professor Mitchell (then in his sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June, 1857.He was alone, and went up from the Swannanoa side.He did not return.No anxiety was felt for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it was supposed he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the Caney River.But when several days passed without tidings of him, a search party was formed.Big Tom Wilson was with it.They explored the mountain in all directions unsuccessfully.At length Big Tom separated himself from his companions and took a course in accordance with his notion of that which would be pursued by a man lost in the clouds or the darkness.He soon struck the trail of the wanderer, and, following it, discovered Mitchell's body lying in a pool at the foot of a rocky precipice some thirty feet high.It was evident that Mitchell, making his way along the ridge in darkness or fog, had fallen off.It was the ninth (or the eleventh) day of his disappearance, but in the pure mountain air the body had suffered no change.Big Tom brought his companions to the place, and on consultation it was decided to leave the body undisturbed till Mitchell's friends could be present.
There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got down to Asheville and there interred.