| From the Daily Picayune (New Orleans, La.) |
| |
| August 18, 1861 |
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| Letter from the Mountains |
| [Correspondence of the Picayune] |
| Suwanee Mountain, University Place, Aug. 7, 1861 |
| I am on the summit of this beautiful
mountain, with a few friends, and very well cared for. ***** |
| Two much credit cannot be bestowed upon
the committee for this selection for the University. Imagine a mountain
two thousand feet above the men's level -- the highest of the group --
with an undulating, plain summit, seventeen miles in circumference,
commanding the most grand and beautiful views of the far extending
valleys beneath -- into which the surrounding mountains extend their
bold fronts, as if in worship at this beautiful shrine -- and you will
have some idea of alluring Suwanee. |
| The Tennessee Coal Company Railroad,
branching from the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, runs directly
through the University grounds, less than one mile from the main
building, that is to be. This mountain road is indeed a wonder, the
elevation in a single mile being one hundred and eighty feet, and
averaging, for six miles, one hundred and thirty-six feet per mile. This
would be accounted an impossibility, even in the comparatively later
days of railroad engineering. You will remember, in its earliest days,
it was deemed necessary that the driving wheels of the engine, even on a
plain, should have cogs and the rails made to correspond. I have often
thought that the essays, reports and estimates issued at the birth and
infancy of our railroad system would form a curious and interesting
volume, bound together with the actual results attained. "A long time
ago, I remember combining the prophecies and attainments, and the
discrepancies were laughable. The gain in speed was some two hundred per
cent., almost the same result in receipts; but all this was, perhaps,
counterbalanced in the loss in expenses and in wear and tear. The
reality of these four items were not approached by the shrewdest and
profoundest estimates nearer than if by the roughest guess. |
| "But yet I ran before my horse to market,"
but as he back to our mountain road, leaving Talley's Cove, in the
western valley, which is about 900 feet above the sea, winds its way, in
a zig-zag course, up, up some 1100 feet, with wonderful short curves,
through impossible passes, over frightful precipices, clinging with fond
embrace to the mountain's sine -- as an infant to its mother. Leaving
Cowan's at 2 P. M., soon after 3 you are at the University station,
eight miles. The road passes on to the coal mines at Tracy City. Over
this road you pass to Beersheba Springs. |
| Two excellent turnpikes are also being
projected to the valleys below. |
| ***** |
| Vattel |
|