of its course. Near this place a rock, of considerable size, had been thrown up and had only partially settled back, owing to the closing of the opening under it, so that the former earth marks were seen several feet above the ground on its sides.

In the year 1867, I saw the locality again. A number of shocks had in the meantime occurred, and the appearances were very different from what they had been. From the top of the ridge to the base it seemed a mass of rocks, most of the earth having been carried away. The depression at the top was greater, while the successive jars had, under the action of the force of gravity, moved the mass downwards, and had forced she stream still further away from the hill The violence had at one point extended itself a little further to the east. A large oak tree of great age and four or five feet in diameter, had been entirely split open from root to top, and thrown down so that the two halves lay several feet apart.

As already intimated, the mineral substances resemble those of this region of country generally. The top of the ridge appears to be a mass of granite, in which the feldspar predominates, with occasionally segregated veins of quartz of small size. Some of the quartz contained thin seams of specular iron, and there are within three or four miles, two deposits of magnetic iron. Some hornblende was visible about the spot. I know of no volcanic rocks in hundreds of miles of this locality. The only sedimentary rocks are the conglomerates, and secondary limestone in the vicinity of the Warm Springs, fifteen miles distant, near the French Broad river, in a basin or gorge fifteen hundred feet lower than this locality.

The extent and configuration of the ground acted on, the long intervals between the shocks, for a period of nearly a century past, and of the absence of heat and of the continuous escape of gasses, rendered it evident that these disturbances were not due to such a merely local cause, as the combustion at a short distance below the surface of a bed of inflammable mineral substances. Though in the opinion of Mr. Fox and others, there are electric currents in certain mineral veins, yet no observations heretofore made would justify us in attributing such phenomena to electricity.

It seemed more plausible to adopt the view that these shocks were due to a low manifestation of volcanic action. If a long narrow chasm had been produced by some former earthquake, which extended to the heated mass below, this chasm might be filled with heated gases, which did not readily find a vent for escape, until they increased in quantity and tension so as to break through the strata immediately above them. Coming upward they might give the rocks nearer the surface a violent jar, which would continue but for a moment, and cease because the gasses escaped through the various fissures created. Such things might possibly occur at long intervals, after the manner in which Sir Charles Lyell accounts for the Geysers, or intermittent hot springs.

It has been often said that volcanic action is limited to areas near the sea. Though such is generally true, yet Humboldt had no doubt but that there is in Asia, an active volcano more than thirteen hundred miles east of the Caspian Sea, and still further distant from both the northern

and southern oceans. Comparatively recent lavas are found in the Rocky Mountains, six hundred miles from the ocean.

In my former publication, it was suggested that if the phenomena at this point were due to volcanic action, similar disturbances would be noticed at other localities in the Alleghany range. I was soon informed that three or four years previously in the south-eastern part of Macon county, between the Tuckasegee river and the Cowee Mountain, the ground was shaken violently for several minutes. A few days afterwards some persons discovered a fresh chasm two or three feet wide, which extended more than a mile. This was in the month of June, and they said that the leaves and branches of timber immediately above the chasm, in places, presented the appearance of having been scorched. Though I was not able to visit the place, yet from the character of my informants, I do not doubt but that the facts were as above stated.

I have also been informed that in the county of Cherokee, in the year 1829, or thereabouts, the Valley River Mountain was cleft open for a considerable distance, during a violent shaking of the earth in that vicinity. The chasm though partially filled up is represented as still visible.

Mr. Silas McDowell, of Macon county, a highly respectable and intelligent gentleman, accustomed to observe and write on such subjects, has stated recently in a paper published in Asheville, that many years since, there was a violent shock in the neighborhood where he resides, during which a chasm was opened on the north side of the mountain which separates the Ellejay waters from those of the Sugar Fork river. He states that the opening is still visible. This locality is eight or ten miles to the south-east of Franklin, in Macon county.

About three years since I heard from many persons, that for several weeks smoke continued to issue from a small crevice in the rock, in Madison county. Not long afterwards I went to the place, and though the smoke had previously ceased to issue, yet there was evidence that the locality had at some time, probably during the present century, been subjected to violence that had changed the outlines of the ground and surface rocks. This spot is about fifteen miles east of the Haywood Mountain, and about as far from the Warm Springs to the northwest of it.

Lastly, we have to notice the disutrbance of the Bald and Stone mountains. They are situated six or eight miles to the east of the Blue Ridge. Between the head waters of the Catawba and those of the Broad river, there extends for many miles eastward a range of mountains attaining the height, in places, of four thousand feet. The Bald and Stone mountains, from their appearance, are probably the highest part of this ridge, and nearly equidistant from the Catawba and Broad rivers. My information with reference to them is derived entirely from conversations with a number of gentlemen, and from the accounts published in the newspapers. The first shocks were perceived on the 10th of February last, and they were for the first month or two more frequent than they have since been. During the last two months they have occurred at intervals of a week or two, but have been rather more violent than the average. Within the last five months probably a hundred shocks, accompanied with noises, have occurred.

The distance from this point to the Valley River Mountain, in Cherokee, nearly due west, is more than one hundred miles in a direct line. From the mountain in Haywood, to reach the parallel of latitude passing through the mountain near Ellejay, in Macon, one must travel more than thirty miles south. It is thus manifested that there is a belt of country more than a hundred miles in extent, from east to west, by thirty in breadth, in which such disturbances are observed. In the present state of scientific knowledge, it may not be an easy task to offer an explanation of the causes which will be generally accepted as satisfactory.

Sir Charles Lyell has with great ingenuity and an array of plausible arguments, advanced the opinion that the changes which the earth's surface has undergone, have been produced by causes which are now acting to as great an extent as they have ever done in the past. To use his own striking language, instead of representing nature as "prodigal of violence and parsimonious of time" he would reverse the proposition. Without our adopting this theory, which does not seem tenable, it is nevertheless evident that the earth is far from being in a state of rest, and that its surface, judging from the observations heretofore made, appears to be undergoing changes, doubtless due to its internal condition. While a portion of Greenland, six hundred miles in length, from north to south, and of the coast of Italy near the temple of Jupiter Serapis, are slowly sinking below the waters of the sea, in the northwest of Europe from the North Cape to Sweden, a distance of a thousand miles, the land is rising at the rate of a few feet in a century. Again, while an area of one hundred thousand square miles in Chili, has been permanently raised as much as three feet by the shock of a single earthquake, a large tract of two thousand square miles in extent, in Hindoostan, has been sunk with the houses on it below the waters of the Indian Ocean. Between those two classes of violence, which represent the extremes of slow and sudden action, there may be many degrees of force greater or less.

Is it at all improbable that owing to some condition of the interior of the earth, there may be a change in progress in this portion of the Alleghanies, more rapid than those observed in Greenland or the north of Europe, and yet falling short of such violence as great earthquakes and volcanoes have developed? If this portion of North Carolina were sinking into the molten mass below, solid strata might be brought in contact with matter so hot as to be decomposed in part, with the evolution of gaseous matter. If, on the other hand, there were an upheaval in progress, of this region, which seems to be the more probable assumption, then the pressure from below might occasionally cause cracks or fissures in the solid strata near the surface. Into such fissures of course the melted matter would be injected and by its great heat fuse some of the solid strata, and partially decompose them. In this manner not only would their water of crystalization, and such streams as it might come in contact with, be converted into steam, but hydrogen, carbonic acid, sulphurous compounds and other gaseous substances, would be liberated in great volume. Filling as they do, the upper portion of the fissures, as their volume and tension from heat increased, they would produce other fractures and explosions, until they finally escaped through openings near the surface. If, from any cause these openings should be closed, then

the gasses thus confined would, from time to time, so increase in volume, or quantity, as to generate periodical explosions such as occur in the Haywood Mountain.

Probably in the vicinity of Stone Mountain there may, among the rocky masses and gorges near it, have already been opened fissures through which gasses may escape.

That there will be an eruption of lava, the phenomena hitherto observed, afford very little grounds for apprehending. At the great silver mine near Guanaxuato, in Mexico, there were almost continuously for three weeks, loud noises resembling the discharges of artillery under ground. They were, however, unattended with any agitation of the earth or other manifestations of violence.

At Mt. Cenis and other localities in the Alps, as well as in some parts of the United States, noises and shakings of the earth have been repeated irregularly for considerable periods of time. Before the eruption of lava at Jorillo, there were continuously for three months, terrific noises accompanied with violent agitation of the earth. For some days small elevations had appeared at the surface, and on the day preceding the eruption fine ashes began to fall.

After continuous agitation of the ground increasing in violence at any locality threatened, the next indications of volcanic action would probably be, the escape of gasses, steam, mud, ashes, hot rocks projected into the air, and finally the eruption of lava. It is highly improbable that there would occur any such disturbances as might endanger the lives of the residents, until the agitation had become more violent and incessant, and followed by some other of the phenomena mentioned.

When we take into account these indications at different points in the North Carolina mountains, it seems evident that there is beneath the surface a condition of things that extends over a considerable area. Α portion of the globe which, from its geological structure, ought to be regarded as being as stable as any part of our planet, is nevertheless not free from change. Whether this is to be regarded as due to the diminishing force, which, at one time was sufficient to heave up this tract of country, with all its mountain chains, or whether it is to be considered as evidence of a gradual return of that volcanic action which manifests itself still elsewhere, to so great an extent, it is perhaps difficult to decide until further observations have been made. Is it not of sufficient interest to justify the managers of the Coast survey, or some other competent agency, to make such careful measurements of the height of certain points, as to ascertain within the next twenty-five or fifty years, whether any, and to what extent, changes may be occurring in this region?

FARMING AND COOKERY.

LETTER TO COL. JOHN D. WHITFORD, EDITOR OF THE "STATE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL."

By Hon. T. L. CLINGMAN,

RALEIGH, May 15, 1875.

COLONEL J. D. WHITFORD

Dear Sir: You are kind enough to express a wish that I should write you an article on some subject suitable for the State Agricultural Journal of which I am gratified to observe you have taken charge. Though not myself a cultivator of the soil, yet one who has traveled much and observed somewhat, may occasionally make suggestions interesting to your readers.

I see in your paper many advertisements of fertilizers, and have often heard discussions on the subject of the best methods of improving lands. I have observed two modes of using manures very unlike in themselves, and followed by very different results. When driving out of Rome one day in an open carriage, the driver paused for a few moments at the outer edge of the city. Immediately opposite me on the left side there were two women with white aprons on a piazza, and in front of a house adjoining this several men were at work. Suddenly the younger of the two women came running to the carriage, as I supposed probably to speak to the driver before he started again. She, however, got down on her knees, extended her apron forward on the ground, and with her hands rapidly drew into it, fresh and clean as it was, a pile of manure just dropped. As soon as she had scraped in every particle of it, she gathered up the edges of the apron and started back with the load. I heard a laugh among the men, and on looking towards them, I saw one of them, who had a bucket and a shovel in his hand, and who had started to secure the manure. The time he lost in getting hold of his utensils enabled the woman, who was already equipped, to carry off the prize, and the laugh was wholly at his expense.

I had a momentary feeling of surprise, but on reflection said, "This will pay." It would not, perhaps, require more than ten minutes of labor to restore the hands and apron to a condition of cleanliness, while the article secured might be a dinner's worth of vegetables for several persons.

Such was the Italian mode. And next consider the other, or Buncombe, mode. An intelligent citizen of that famous county lived in