The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1879-09-04
FOR tne VIRl
Rambles in Virginia.

MIDDLE VIRGINIA AND PIEDMoNr-HIsT-
CRICAL "REMINISCENCES TRANSPORTA-
TIoN FACILITIES OF PIEDMONT-A TRIP
TO NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. OF EAs-
TERN VIRGINIA.
Yankees are said to be peculiarly acute
and ohservant, and travel affords the widest
field for observation. Wherefore, the trav-
eled Yankee should possess an unequalled
fund OF practical knowledge. Yet are there
travellers and travellers, Yankees and Yam
KEGS, and we are constantly finding Amer
leans, like the typical British tourist, who
travel not to learn, scarcely even to enjoy,
but to confirm their preconceived IDEAS
In Southern city once met Northern
gentleman who expressed very poor opin-
ion Of Old Virginia, ga worn-o and barren
country, dreary and uninteresting, where a
man is poor in proportion to the land he
owns" He had travelled across it score of
times and found it as uninviting as desert.
Poor. blind man 1 pitied him for
his sightless eyes, and his ears that
heard not. He knew nothing of the
famous and fertile Shenandoah Valley,
that '.granery of the Confederacy," nor Of
Southwestern Virginia, SO long a terra IN
cogsita, whose marvellous scenery and min
eral wealth are only now beginning to be
known to the world at large. He had crossed
the State by the Coast and Piedmont lines.
He knew of Gordonsville as place where
the darkies startled the traveller by strange
cries and sold him fried chicken and hot
coffee ; of Lynchburg as an ugly city on a
steep hill; Lovingston as an execrable
breakfast station; Charlottesville as a
place where he had dined well, and near this
latter he knew that Jefferson used to live
and founded the University he saw from the
car windows. meekly suggested that along
this line of the Piedmont or Virginia Mid
land railroad, they raised fruit for Northern
cities, beef and mutton for our British cous-
ms, wheat that was exported in flour to
Brazil, and tobacco for France and Germa
ny they quarried marble, granite, brown
stone, soap and slate; they mined
gold, lead, iron ore, kaolin and other miner
ais. No, he saw nothing, heard nothing of
all this. He was ignorant of the geological
history Of the country he had traversed, SO
wonderful and interesting that fairly writ
ten, it would read like a romance. And Of
its human history be had but dim and con-
fused recollection of its association with the
| - No ToF Ma
son, OF Kosciusko, Lafayette, Tarleson and
CORVALLIS, of Lord Fairfax, Sir Alex.
SpottswooG, and in later days of the hosts
clad in blue and gray, who marched and
daisies bloom and corn and grass wave
peacefully in the summer breeze.
This man was perhaps exceptional in
character, yet he serves as fair type OF a
large class common to all States and Sec
tons, who see ''not with their eyes, but
with their prejudices,' and who learn
seemingly with difficulty and reluctance
Let us not flatter ourselves, for we have
plenty of them in Virginia, and among them
they who are leaving their native State,
of which they know little, for an
other of which they know less. For
such people 1 feel a genuine sympathy
and regret that they are cut of, as
| deaf and dumb and blind men are, from 30
many sources of keen and elevating enjoy
ment, and my mind often goe3 back to that
stone quarry by Cromarty Friths where the
laborers all saw nothing but the banks Of
clay and lodges of rock In which they toiled
All but one bright boy, who had never
heard of geology or fossils, but who saw
ripple marks on the sand stones as on The
sandy beach, and who found shells some.
times and casts of singular fishes, and
sought to know the why and wherefore
OF the others we know nothing, but Hugh
Miller and the enhancing story he has told
us of The Old Red Sandstone, of ancient
seas and their crowded life, OF elevation
and submersion OF the earth's crust,
of denudation and volcanic eruption,
of the slow and successive change!
through icons of time, recorded only on the
stone book OF nature-these will never be
forgotten while the English languageis read
or spoken.
And so here, in Middle and Piedmont Vir
ginia, he who would look beyond car win
dcws and below the surface will find ample
subjects of interest In the past history, the
present condition, and the future prospects
of this section, so much beled because SC
little understood.
Perhaps my readers recollect, in a speecl
ofone of our most perfec orators,a accoun
OF certain German life of Martin Luther
in several ponderous volumes. The author
first describes the character and formation
Of the rocks of Germany and their minera
deposits. the climate, flora and fauna, TIN
ancient and modern history and customs o
the country and its people, and som cwhere
in the middle of the third or fourth volume
Luther is born.
Beyond doubt these elements entered
into or exercised an effect upon the life AM
character of the great Reformer, impercep
tible to many who laughed at the prolixit.
of the erudite and laborious author. Blu
the reader need not fear my entering upol
a secondhand geological dissertation. shall
but briefly touch upon the formation an
character OF the Theological structure o
Eastern Virginia as the indispensable Ike
to its agricultural and mineral resources
Nor need the subject be deemed dry AM
uninteresting one, for the facile pens 9
Lyell, Rogers and Hunt have made it as II
viting as the pages OF romance.
The great artery OF transportation across tn
State of Virginia, through which courses tn
chief tide OF northern and southern travel,
the Washington City, Virginia Midland I
Great Southern railroad, ga miles in lengt
from Washington to Danville. near tn
North Carolina line, where it connects wit
. the Piedmont Air Line to Atlanta. And q
Lynchburg it connects with the Atlantic
Mississippi & Ohio railroad westward, form
, ing part OF the great Kenesaw route to Cha
tanooga and New Orleans. Througho,
, this long distance it traserses the wester
border Of what is known as Middle Virgin