Augusta is regarded as one of the most beautiful of the Southern cities, having wide tree-embowered streets and many ornate buildings, and it fortunately escaped injury during the Civil War. It was laid out by General Oglethorpe, the Georgia founder, on the same artistic plan as Savannah, and he named it after the English princess, Augusta. The Savannah River, the largest of Georgia, and forming the boundary with South Carolina, rises in the Blue Ridge in close proximity to the headwaters of the Tennessee and the Chattahoochee. Its initial streams, the Tugaloo and Kiowee, unite in the Piedmont district to form the Savannah, which then flows four hundred and fifty miles past Augusta and Savannah to the sea. ATLANTA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. The Chattahoochee was the Indian "river of the pictured rocks." Its head-streams rise in the Blue Ridge in northeastern Georgia, and flowing southwest and afterwards south, it forms the western boundary of the State. Then uniting with the Flint River, the two make the Appalachicola, which, crossing Florida, empties into the Gulf. The Chattahoochee in its course passes, about seven miles from the Georgia capital, Atlanta, the "Gate City," the metropolis of the "Empire State of the South," and the chief Southern railway centre. Being largely a growth of the railway system of the "New South," the city is picturesquely situated on a hilly surface, elevated a thousand feet above the sea, and is laid out in the form of a circle of about four miles radius around the Union Passenger Depot, which is the central point. The first house was built at this place in 1836, on an Indian trail to the crossing of the Chattahoochee, whither a railroad was projected, and for several years it was called, for this reason, Terminus, being afterwards incorporated as the town of Marthasville, and named after the Georgia Governor Lumpkin's daughter. In 1845, the first railroads were constructed connecting it with the seaboard, and soon becoming a tobacco and cotton-mart, it grew rapidly, and in 1847 was incorporated as the city of Atlanta, having about twenty-five hundred people. During the Civil War it was a leading Confederate depot of supplies, but its great growth has come since, and largely through the development of the railway system and manufactures, so that now the city and suburbs, which are extensive, have a population approximating two hundred thousand. Its State Capitol is an impressive building, costing $1,000,000, and it has many imposing business and public structures and fine private residences. Joel Chandler Harris, _Uncle Remus_, is a resident of Atlanta. Its great historical event was the memorable siege during the Civil War. The geographical position of the city made it of vital importance to the Confederacy. General Sherman, in his advance southward from Chattanooga in the spring and early summer of 1864, steadily fought and outflanked the Confederates, until in July they fell back behind the Chattahoochee