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.
XXXIII.
From beneath the eastern aspect of the mountains of Alabama, a broad belt of metamorphic rocks bursts forth, and trends to the north-eastward, following the mountain ranges in almost parallel lines through the States of Georgia, South and North Carolina, and disappearing in Virginia beneath the waters of the Potomac. These lands of decomposed mica and talcose schists contain throughout their broad extent particles of gold; and some of the narrow and circumscribed fields are unsurpassed in their undeveloped richness by any of the known gold fields of similar extent in the world. These auriferous soils, owned or controlled by the slaveholder, have yielded, by the superficial scratchings and washings of the slave and the poor white, during the period since the discovery of the precious metal, about forty millions of dollars. There are not less than one hundred millions more within the reach and grasp of skilled and determined labor.
Along beside, and traversing through and through these golden rocks and sands, occur immense bands of itacolumite, known, from its flexibility, as the elastic sandstone. They stretch from Alabama to the interior of North Carolina, bursting forth now as great flexible bands of stone, and then bulging out as entire mountains. This singular formation is the same that has been recognized in Brazil, Ural Mountains, and Hindostan, as the matrix of the diamond; and here, nearly one hundred of the precious gems of fine water have been picked up from the earth, from time to time, by the careless observer.