Over lonely mountains the road now leads to Elk river. I rode for mile after mile that evening without seeing a cabin or farm-house. The scenery along the Elk has something decidedly romantic in its features. On one hand would be perched a moss-grown cottage on the mountain slope, with a few giant hemlocks, allowed to stand at the time of the general clearing, overshadowing it. Below, on the other hand, would lie fertile fields, watered by the noisy Elk, and enclosed on three sides by the dark and sober forests of the hemlock. The serenity of the evening was not disturbed by the farewell whistling of the quails; the rattling of the bells from the cows coming homeward across the pastures; the barking of a dog behind the barnyard fence, and the opening cry of the whip-poor-will. The moon had turned from silver to gold; the stream under the spruces was sparkling where no shadows fell athwart its surface, and a cold, evening breeze, the usual companion of night over the mountains, was rustling the black foliage of the trees, when I dismounted at a hospitable farm-house on the Elk, where I had a wholesome supper; shared a bed with the farmer’s son, a graduate of the North Carolina University; had an early breakfast, and before sunrise, mounting my horse, I was on the way toward the foot of the Roan. An old forge, where the iron taken from the mountain near by was smelted, stands by the road. It was abandoned a few years since. The Cranberry mines are a mile off the main road. They are in Humpback mountain, Mitchell county, North Carolina, and included in a tract of 4,000 acres, owned by the Cranberry Iron & Coal Company of Philadelphia, of which A. Pardee is president. Mines have been worked in this mountain for the last half-century. They are now being operated on a large scale. The narrow-gauge railway, an off-shoot of the E. T:, V. & G. R. R., runs to the tunnel; and the raw ore is transferred by rail to furnaces in the North. The tunnel to the ore bank is run in on a level from the railroad, to a depth of 325 feet. Both steam and hand drills are being worked. The vein now struck appears inexhaustible. It was discovered half a mile above on the mountain side, and then the lower tunnel was projected in to it. The company’s saw-mill is in active operation near by. A town will soon be in existence here.