Valdez daily prospector., 1914-10-03


 sand visitors who have passed on the white roads of the Biltmore estate and admired the magnincence of Bttmore house have glimpsed more of it than the misty blue barrier that bounds it on the northwest
 It Is a lordly domain of 1s4 square miles of wooded mountains and rush. ing streams which has thus been add. ed to the national possessions It is the most extensive hardwood reserve east of the Rockies. It is game and fish preserve which has few equals. It has seventeen miles of good roads built for use by automobilists, crestng heights over 5000 feet above sea level.
 Great mountains rise in its bounds, eliminating in the rock peak of b.757 feet high Pisgah. There are grassy "balds'' and domes dark with balsam, and rock cliffs governing bear and wolves. On the slopes arc magnificent trees and tangled areas of rhododen' dron and laurel.
 Thousands of high placed springs 6CAu luS4 NY "0OCA Q AA AuoAAAAo AAs oAS~S down to streams which foam over beds of rock and swirl in dark pools by vast powders. The beds are paved with rocks, and often the white water spreads in silvery simmer over giant floors of granite. Waterfalls are here and there, one on Looking Glass creek having an abrupt fall of sixty feet Scores of small streams unite to form the Davidson river, which empties into the French Broad
 The reserve extends from a point six miles from Ashev1lle southwest to Pisgah Forest station on the Toxaway branch of the Southern railway, lying between the Brevard-Asheville state road on the southeast and Pisgah ridge on the northwest, its due north limit being a line drawn from Ptsgah to a point four miles from Biltmore house Much the greater part of it is in Tran sylvania county.
 The automobile road built by MT. Vanderbilt overlooks 1t, and by using it one can be in the midst of the wilder ness in two hours ride from Asheville. and Asheville is only twenty y-one hours Journey from New York. The automo- bile road ascends 2,500 feet to the elab crate hunting lodge of the vanderbilts, which with 500 acres adjoining is ex- cepted from the sale, and then contin- ues along the ridge ten miles, topping some heights and circling other peaks while maintaining an average elevation of 4,5OO feet above sea level
 Each turn of this road develops new beauties. Sometimes 1t hangs over a precipice looking down on a sea of greenery, and again from lofty point one sees a vast panorama of noun tains rising and falling apparently like billows-several of the balsams being higher than Mount Washington-and in the distance the prodigious wall of the Great Smokies on the Tennessee line The secretaries of agriculture. interior and war came up this road from Ashe- vile to the hunting lodge, twenty-seven miles, in an hour and half, and at that the chauffeur took no chances of creating any vacancies in the cabinet These government officials inspected the property in June, 191a
 An extension of this road a dozen miles to Brevard would connect 1t with the state road to Asheville. now in very good condition. and thus provide a sixty mile tour for automobiles From 1t MT. Vanderbilt constructed two well graded roads leading down into the valleys, and there one finds many miles of easy gradient highway which he built along the water courses The Appalachian Park association. whose headquarters are in Asheville. has been for a year actively promoting the conversion of all lands bought by the forest reservation commission into national parks, which should be con. nected by automobile roads built by the government
 It Is estimated that there are now 5000 deer on the tract, besides bears. wolves, foxes, squirrels, raccoons, quail, wild turkeys. native pheasants and the descendants of the English and Chi nese pheasants and the wild boar with which 1t was stocked many years ago.