The region, as measured in a bee line through the center of the plateau from Virginia to Georgia, is 200 miles in length. Its breadth, from the summits of the parallel rampart ranges of the Blue Ridge and Smokies, varies from 15 to 65 miles, and includes within this measurement a plateau expanse of 6,000 square miles, with an altitude of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet. Inclusive of the eastern slope, the off-shooting spurs of the Blue Ridge and the South mountains, the average breadth is 70 miles. A portion of the piedmont section, properly a part of the mountain district, would be taken in the latter measurement. The counties are 25 in number, reaching from Ashe, Alleghany, and Surrey in the north to Macon, Clay, and Cherokee in the south. After the bifurcation of the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountains in Virginia, embracing with a wide sweep several counties of that state and Ashe, Alleghany, and Watauga of North Carolina, they almost meet again in the northeastern limit of Mitchell county. Here, in collosal conjunction, through their central sentinel heads, the two ranges seem holding conference before making their final separation. The Grandfather, the highest peak of the Blue Ridge and the oldest mountain of the world, stands on one side; the majestic Roan of the Smokies, on the other, connected by the short transverse upheaval known as Yellow mountain. This spot is poetically spoken of as the grand portal to the inner temple of the Alleghanies; the Grandfather and the Roan being the two pillars between which hangs, forever locked, the massive gate of Yellow mountain. The high table-land of Watauga forms the green-carpeted step to it. Trending southwest, between the two separating ranges,--the Blue Ridge bending like a bow, and the Smokies resembling the bow-string,--lies wrapped in its robe of misty purple, the central valley, comprising 13 counties. The western rampart range, bearing the boundary line between North Carolina and Tennessee, lifts its crest much higher than the Blue Ridge; is more massive in its proportions; less straggling in its contour; but with lower gaps or gorges, narrow and rugged, through which flow all the rivers of the plateau. Generically known as the Smoky mountains, it is by the river gorges divided into separate sections, each of which has its peculiar name. The most northerly of these sections is termed the Stone mountains; then follow the Iron, Bald, Great Smoky, Unaka, and the Frog mountains of Georgia. Twenty-three peaks of the Smoky mountains are over 6,000 feet in altitude, the loftiest being Clingman’s Dome, 6,660 feet. The deepest gap is that of the Little Tennessee, 1,114 feet.