Turn to the left and follow up this valley, keeping the mountain on your left. You are not the first to take this course: the line of human ants used to creep down it in order to climb over the wall at the gap. Mark how inaccessible this wall is at every other point. Mark, also, that as you go two little black parallel iron threads follow you--a railroad, one of the greatest systems of the South. All along the mountain slope overhanging the railroad, iron ore; beyond the mountain crest, timbers and coals. Observe, likewise, the features of the land: water abundant, clear, and cold; fields heavy with corn and oats; an ever-changing panorama of beautiful pictures. The farther you go the more rich and prosperous the land, the kinder the soil to grains and gardens and orchards; bearing its burden of timbers--walnut, chestnut, oak, and mighty beeches; lifting to the eye in the near distance cultivated hillsides and fat meadows; stretching away into green and shadowy valley glades; tuneful with swift, crystal streams--a land of lovely views. Remember well this valley, lying along the base of the mountain wall. It has long been known as the granary of south-west Virginia and east Tennessee; but in time, in the development of civilization throughout the Appalachian region, it is expected to become the seat of a dense pastoral population, supplying the dense industrial population of new mining and manufacturing towns with milk, butter, eggs, and fruit and vegetables. But for the contiguity of such agricultural districts to the centres of ores and coals, it would perhaps be impossible to establish in these remote spots the cities necessary to develop and transport their wealth. Follow this valley up for a distance of sixty miles from Cumberland Gap and there pause, for you come to the head of the valley, and you have reached another pass in the mountain wall. You have passed out of Tennessee into Virginia, a short distance from the Kentucky border, and the mountain wall is no longer called the Cumberland: twenty miles southwest of where you now are that mountain divided, sending forth this southern prong, called Stone Mountain, and sending the rest of itself between the State line of Kentucky and Virginia, under the name of the Big Black Mountain. Understand, also, the general bearings of the spot at which you have arrived. It is in that same Alleghany system of mountains--the richest metalliferous region in the world--the northern section of which long ago made Pittsburgh; the southern section of which has since created Birmingham; and the middle section of which, where you now are, is claimed by expert testimony, covering a long period of years and coming from different and wholly uninterested authorities, to be the richest of the three.