The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-02-15

the south--A Cosmopolitan City on
"Seven Hills"--Hotels and Clubs.
North Carolina is not alone great in
her industrial and material wealth. she
Is majestic and sublime In the stupend-
Gus works of the Almighty, as portray
ed in towering mountains and deep
shadowed gorges and immense forests.
The East has it's White mountains, the
West has its Rockies and it's Sierras,
and British Columbia her Cascades, her
gold and her Selkirks and Alaska her
st. Elias Alps, whose barren but majes-
tic submits pierce the very heavens,
noble fortresses and features of
strength on natures face. All these we
have been permitted TO behold in their
beauty and grandeur, but nowhere in
this country Is there region more
picturesque more charmingly beauti-
ful than the mountain country OF
western North Carolina, poeticallE
known as "The Land of the Sky
While it is true those OF the West are
of greater elevation, rugged, barren
and forbidding, those found in western
northern Carolia in the picturesque
Blue Ridge and other ranges of the
great Appalachian chain, which forms
the divide" between the waters of the
Atlantic ocean and the Mississippi
river are robed in deep hued forests to
their highest SUBMITS. Where the
greater peaks of the Rocky mountain
ranges frown, those Of the THE Land
of the Sky" smile through banks Of
rhododendrons and azaleas. Where the
valleys of the one are rocky and inn
passable gorges, in the other are fern
carpeted forests through which noun
tain streams clear as crystal tumble
merrily along over moss-grown rocks
in their race to the open. Let the read
ers picture in the mind n region where
range after range of heavily forested
mountains parallel each other like
waves of the sea, where interlacing
valleys are rich with verdure and
flowers and where silver streams mur-
mur increasingly. Imagine too a land of
bright. winsome skies, then add to
this glory, air so light and pure, so full
Of tonic and softness, that every breath
sends new flush to the check and a
new sparkle to the eye, then throw over
all d canopy of bluest of Italian blue,
and you have "The Land of the Sky"
where the joy of living becomes in
tensified as nowhere else in this coun-
try. This rugged mountain region en-
braces the extreme western portion of
North Carolina and the eastern edge
of Tennessee Its area is the equal of
Switzerland and acknowledged to be a
worthy rival in majestic beauty and
sublmty. Within these confines are
several districts alike in their general
features, but each having distinct
charms and advantages peculiarly it's
own. All of it is widely mountainous,
there being more than twenty peaks
higher than the famous Mout Washing
ton of New Hampshire and over four
score, almost as massive and high,
exceeding 5000 feet clothed to their
very submits with a growth of heavy
timber. There are some $50 stupendous
precipices, such as Caesars Head and
Whteside, the latter presenting a per-
pendicular front of naked rock, 1S0 feet
in height.
ELEVATED PLATEAU.
In this elevated plateau of North
Carolina, the highest body of land east
OF the Rockes-Asheville, "the mecca of
health seekers is located 1900 feet
east of Denver. In every direction
the mountains raise their majestic
heights, until they seem to pierce the
very azure of the skies. It's geo.
graphical location, lying as it does in
the central belt Of the temperate zone,
insures the most delightful spring
climate. No bleak Northerners can
pass over the mighty peaks which
fluence of the Gulf Stream is felt far
into the interior. There is perfect free
dom from the extremes of either heat
and cold, and the vitality in the air,
laden as it is with the balsam of the
pines has an immediate effect upon the
visitor.
A large proportion of the days dur
Ing the year are sunny, the average Of
clear days being 259. Many days in
winter one feels as comfortable in the
bright sunshine, as he would in June,
North, and picnicking parties to the
woods with lunch baskets are frequent
in February. The winter temperature of
Asheville is several degrees warmer
than that of Geneva, Switzerland, and
Turin, Italy, and fourteen degrees
warmer than In the Swiss Alps. where
thousands of patients are sent every
winter by specialists for the beneficial
effects of it's mountains air.
The rain fall is very small, only i0.2
inches. while that of Aiken, is 80; At
lanta, 62,7 and Jacksonville, 65.6 inches.
One distinguished visitor remarked:
THE air of the region has such pecu-
liarly bracing and invigorating quality,
electrical in character, SO much so,
4. ..l..,
Vile has the dryest climate the year
round, of any point east of Denver, ac-
cording to the United States Signal
Service official Gatn.
SARATOGA OF ',if. SOUTH.
Asheville has been the Sara
toga of the South" hu, ta Is hardly
correct, for there is not single point
in which comparison OF natural advan-
tages can be made, which would not
be in Asheville's favor, Climate, seem
cry, health and atmospheric conditions
are incomparably better at Asheville.
l repeat nature has so encircled this
beautiful city with rugged mountain
scenery that the traveller coming from
which direction he may, has presented
to him with Kaleidoscope changes IA
panorama which for sublimity and
grandeur is surpassed in but few spots
In the world.
Its situation between the Alleghany
mountains, the Blue Ridge and the
Great Smoky ranges and the Swan
nanoa and French Broad rivers, over
looking a thousand square miles of
supberb scenery, has given 1t the name
Of 1.-The City of the Skies" and the
Newport and Saratoga of the South
combined. Once the resort of Southern
people only, its fame having gone
throughout the world, it is now a