The government has recently placed at the disposal of the United States Geological Survey an appropriation for the investigation of this subject, to ascertain how irrigation can be secured, the cost of irrigation works, and point out the means for irrigation, in the arid regions. It is one of the wisest things Congress ever did; wise in the time and in the subject. The time will soon come when the question would have been forced upon the country, and the wisdom of preparing for that time cannot be too highly commended.
ROUND ABOUT ASHEVILLE.
BY BAILEY WILLIS.
A broad amphitheatre lies in the heart of the North Carolina mountains which form its encircling walls; its length is forty miles from north to south and its width ten to twenty miles. At its southern gate the French Broad river enters; through the northern gate the same river flows out, augmented by the many streams of its extensive watershed.
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SECTION FROM THE CUMBERLAND PLATEAU TO THE BLUE RIDGE. Natural profiles. |
From these water-courses the even arena once arose with gentle slope to the surrounding heights and that surface, did it now exist, would make this region a very garden, marked by its genial climate and adequate rainfall. But that level floor exists no longer; in it the rivers first sunk their channels, their tributaries followed, the gullies by which the waters gathered deepened, and the old plain was thus dissected. It is now only visible from those points of view from which remnants of its surface fall into a common plane of vision. This is the case whenever the observer stands upon the level of the old arena; he may then sweep with a glance the profile of a geographic condition which has long since passed away.
Asheville is built upon a bit of this plain between the ravines of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, now flowing 380 feet below the level, and at the foot of the Beau-catcher hills; toward which the ground rises gently. The position is a commanding one, not only for the far reaching view, but also as the meeting place of lines of travel from north, south, east, and west. Thus Asheville became a town of local importance long before railroads were projected along the lines of the old turnpikes. The village was the center of western North Carolina, as well of the county of Buncombe, and was therefore appropriately the home of the district Federal court. A May session of the court was in progress nine years ago when I rode up the muddy street from the Swannanoa valley. Several well-known moonshiners were on trial, and the town street was crowded with their sympathizers, lean mountaineers in blue and butternut homespun. Horses were hitched at every available rack and fence, and horse trading was active. Whiskey was on trial at other bars than that of the court, and the long rifle, powder-horn and pouch had not been left in the mountains. To a "tenderfoot" (who had the day before been mistaken for a rabbit or a revenue officer!) the attentions of the crowd were not reassuring.
The general opinion was, I felt, akin to that long afterward expressed by Groundhog Cayce: "It air an awful thing ter kill a man by accident;" and I staid but a very short time in Asheville.