The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1911-01-26
FINEST IN THE D

For Her q Reputation That is
Country Wholesome Legisla-
tive Notes.
Raleigh, N. c., Jan, 19, 1911
When the whale swallowed Jon
ali, recently, he was naturally
somewhat down In the mouth
about it. That. is, Jonah was
down In the mouth. Not the
whale, but Jonah. But if the
whale was anything like the fellow
whose ffty-foot SHELTON adorns the
State Museum here, Jonah had no
kick coming on the size of his tenn
porary living quarters, as the pa
pers said In their accounts of the
interesting incident the next
morning.
This whale In the museum was
killed near Beaufort In 1874. His
shelton is almost as long as the
Peoples National Bank building,
he weighed one hundred tons and
furnished seven hundred pounds
of whalebone. Every woman In
Henderson county knows what
whalebone is used for and it sells
for twenty dollars a pound.
The whale is but one of the
many very interesting exhibits in
the museum, the finest in the
South, says Commissioner of La
Dor M. L. Shipman, with a gentle
smack of the lips after the word
finest" Indeed, aside from the his
torical relics stored there, of the
greatest value and interest, the
museum. is an exposition of the
wonderful natural resources of
North Carolina. You really can
have no true conception of the
magnitude of these resources with
out spending a week Or so inspect
ing these examples of the natural
wealth with which nature has so
beautifully blessed this State.
Consider, for instance, the tim
Der exhibit, representing untold
millions of dollars stored away in
western North Carolina, awaiting
but the building of railroads, and
it is hoped, scientific numbering,
to be turned into a blanket Of
gold.
In this exhibit Henderson coun-
.ty is represented by a monstrous
slabsof yellow birch, over forty
inches in diameter, and by sever
al fine specimans of Carolina hem
lock. Then there's a section of
.four-foot chestnut oak from Hay
wood county; a great slab of iron
wood from Swain; beautiful
bass wood from jackson; black
walnut from Stanley; an enorm-
Gus white pine from Mitch
ell; superbly polished black cher
ry from Pennsylvania while Cher
okee and Madison add theirs In
two sections of gigantic yellow
popular, one section being over
ssx feet in diameter.
AS to the agricultural and min
eral resources of this State, as
evidence here, they are really over
towering and may not be told of
in this brief article. But that ar
ray of silver cups in yonder case,
all of them won recently at Des
Moines, Iowa, where the farmers
and fruit growers of North Caro-
lima literally swept everything be-
fore them, impresses you forcibly
with the fact that the state is at
last coming into its own.
The exhibit of bird and
animal life of North Carolina is
as interesting as anything can well
be. Remember, everything shown
in the museum is now, or was once
found in this state from the whale
already referred to and the mons.
trous buffalo underneath it down
to the tiny egg of the tufted tit
mouse and the little striped skunk
from Buncombe. Whales and
bufaloes are gone but, alas, not sc
the skunk. There's considerable
pleasure to be derived from a con.
templative consideration of this
little visitor from Buncombe. It's
a, beautiful ANIMAL handsome
animal, but at the same time you
are reminded of the old saying
that handsome is as handsome
does.
Mr.. j. r. Wilson, for whom 9th
er people hens seem to have a
marked affinity, would be inter
ested in the exhibit of native birds
eggs. From the ruby-throated
hummingbird's egg, SO absurdly
little that it seems impossible it
may contain all the elements of
life, to the azure tinted egg of the
great and rare blue heron, they
=. I'll have II 10 cold. tho oOl