ier--and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they
descended--the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of
squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in
response to the sonnet. Is there any region or circumstance of life that
the poet did not forecast and provide for? But what would have been his
feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries after these
lines were penned, they would be used to express the emotion of an
unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the New World? At any
rate, he peopled the New World with the children of his imagination.
And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his horse did not permit him
to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have had a vision of this vast
continent, though he did not refer to it, when he exclaimed:

"What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?"

Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces. The
valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing introduction
to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six hundred
inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and a
court-house. This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said
to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to people
with weak lungs.

This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
about minerals. All around, the hills are spotted with "diggings." Most
of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked before,
a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the Indians. The
mica is of excellent quality and easily mined. It is got out in large
irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the factories, where it is
carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of as large size as can be
obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up in packages for market.
The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten mica piled up about the
factories is immense, and all the roads round about glisten with its
scales. Garnets are often found imbedded in the laminae, flattened by
the extreme pressure to which the mass was subjected. It is fascinating
material, this mica, to handle, and we amused ourselves by experimenting