If you climb to the top of a peak in Dug Down Mountains, a spur of the Blue Ridge that dwindles to a height of 1000 feet in southeastern Alabama, and take a look at the state--provided the binoculars are strong enough-you'll see why there's a saying down in that country to the effect that "Alabama could sleep with her head resting upon the iron-studded hills of her mineral district, her arms stretched across fields of food and raiment, and her feet bathing in the placid waters of Mobile Bay." This Cornucopia of the South is not sleeping, however; she is on her feet and bestirring herself and aware of her almost limitless resources. "She could dig beneath her surface and find practically every chemical element required in the prosecution of modern war.... She could fire her guns with 7,529,090 pounds of explosives produced annually in her mineral mines.... In her hour of victory, she could declare herself the Queen of the Commonwealth, mold her diadem with gold from Talladega, and embellish it with rubies from the bed of the Coosa that drains the Dug Down foothills of the Blue Ridge." In short, her native sons like to boast, "Alabama could isolate herself from all the world and live happily forever after." And lest they forget the past, the first White House of the Confederacy, where Jefferson Davis lived and ruled, still stands, a grim reminder of the old South. * * * * * How amazed the pioneer dwellers of the Blue Ridge would be if they could stalk down the mountain side and take a look at what Uncle Sam has been doing the past eight years! Strange words too would fall upon their ears, modern-made to suit modern things. What with good roads and autos, hotels have sprung up thick as mushrooms; so have motels. There's the Zooseum, combining living curiosities and relics. Pleaz Mosley got together in a corner of his farm a lot of Indian relics, petrified oddities, and a few rare varmints, a five-legged calf and a one-eyed 'possum, and housed them in a shack down by the new road that cut through his bottom land and drew sightseers day after day.