The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-02-21
lofty peaks were bath.d in sunshine.

The top and bottom lines of the frozen
mists seem as perfectly horizontal as the
shore line Of lake, showing that the mist
cloud aoated in very perfect equilibrium
with the heavier air below and the lighter
atmosphere above.
As the train labored along and slowly
climbed the steep incline Of some seven
miles to Balsam Gap we drew nearer and
nearer the belt of glinting ice on either side,
till IL seemed but few hundred yards
away and not more than five hundred feet
above us.
Some parts Of the mountains are very
/ steep, and some others at the heads Of
streams are deep sheltered coves, buried
in gloom or bathed in sunshine. according
as the outlook Is toward the dreary north
or the sunny south.
If the best elevation for the lungs of the
consumptive is above the $50 feet of Ashe-
vile, above the 2,736 feet of Haywood
| Springs and Waynesville, and still above
the Bali feet of Balsam Gap, other and
higher elevations can be found in these
mountains, well sheltered by nature, Civ
ing an outlook of grandeur and beauty,
and capable of every improvement neces-
sary to the comfort of the invalid.
If, as is most likely, it be found that the
best altitude varies with individual cases,
the south mountain sides may be filed
| with health resorts even to a height of FIVE
or six thousand feet, while Asheville, the
Richland valley, and many other places Of
less elevation, increase in desirability and
| usefulness as the climate treatment is spe-
cialized and perfected.
In any case think | would be inclined
90 eli hn Ialt rf IL ,foh
/ mist clouds most often kiss the mountain
sides, for while that might be the best pos
sible elevation it would be the most hui
mid. and this drawback would more than
compensate the advantage. Ny choice
would, therefore, be below this belt or
above in the colder regions of almost per-
petual sunshine.
Here must correct mistake. When
looking out on the distant mountain sides
from an upper balcony at Asheville l
thought saw a snow belt but it was really
belt OF frozen mist on the cloud line, such
as have just described, which in the far dis
lance my unaccustomed eye had naturally
mistaken for snow. so far as l know there
was no snow at all in the Asheville basin
while that great Christmas storm was rag
ing through the country
The electrical condition of a thunder
cloud is intense and opposite to that of the
earth. Hence the lightning. which is but
the passage of electricity from the cloud
through the resisting strata of interven-
ihg air.
Is it not likely that the mist cloud is in
an opposite electrical condition, to that Of
the earth, but one of low intensity; that it
comes in contact with its electrical Oppo-
site on the mountain sides and consequent
ly deposits its moisture? In short, that the
mountain basin, the inclosed air, and the
floating cloud are a huge electrical bath
provided by nature, and that the frozen
mist" on the mountain side il as definitely
electro plated upon the trees as silver or
nickel upon metal by the art of man, or
copper upon the type matrix to multiply
and preserve for indefinite reproduction
the work of the type setter and the en-
graver? Let the questions of climate be
patiently Investigated, the secrets of cloud
land disclosed, and all made subject to the
fullest uses of man.
Balsam Gap is named from the greatest
cross range of mountains in the whole Al
leghany system. This range, which has
several spurs that would be in themselves
II
takes its name from the species of pine
which covers its highest peaks with green
so deep that it is blackness in comparison
with the forest below. The resinous sap
of this beautiful tree is "balsam" of
many alleged virtues, and many OK the
people Of the mountains believe that they
owe their immunity from consumption
and some other diseases in a greater or less
degree to that ever present essence of the
balsam pine pervading the air, and al
though imperceptible to the senses, vet
having thus constantly inhaled a definite
medicinal effect in the lungs TO prevent,
to check or TO destroy the germs of disease.
Many physicians attribute such virtues 80
the long leaved pine of the south. 1t may
be that they are not altogether wrong, and
that the more pungent "balsam'' essence
has the greater virtue
EDWIN A CURLEY.