The Blue Ridge is thickly covered with large trees to the very summit; some of the mountains are rugged and extremely stony, others are not so, and on these last the soil is found to be rich and fertile. It is only in particular places that this ridge of mountains can be crossed, and at some of the gaps the ascent is steep and difficult; but at the place where I crossed it, which was near the Peak of Otter, on the south side, instead of one great mountain to pass over, as might be imagined from an inspection of the map, there is a succession of small hills, rising imperceptibly one above the other, so that you get upon the top of the ridge before you are aware of it. [Sidenote: PEAKS OF OTTER.] The Peaks of Otter are the highest mountains in the Blue Ridge, and, measured from their bases, are supposed to be more lofty than any others in North America. According to Mr. Jefferson, whose authority has been quoted nearly by every person that has written on the subject since the publication of his Notes on Virginia, the principal peak is about four thousand feet in perpendicular height; but it must be observed, that Mr. Jefferson does not say that he measured the height himself; on the contrary, he acknowledges that the height of the mountains in America has never yet been ascertained with any degree of exactness; it is only from certain data, from which he says a tolerable conjecture may be formed, that he supposes this to be the height of the loftiest peak. Positively to assert that this peak is not so high, without having measured it in any manner, would be absurd; as I did not measure it, I do not therefore pretend to contradict Mr. Jefferson; I have only to say, that the most elevated of the peaks of Otter appeared to me but a very insignificant mountain in companion with Snowden, in Wales; and every person that I conversed with that had seen both, and I conversed with many, made the same remark. Now the highest peak of Snowden is found by triangular admeasurement to be no more than three thousand five hundred and sixty-eight feet high, reckoning from the quay at Carnarvon. None of the other mountains in the Blue Ridge are supposed, from the same data, to be more than two thousand feet in perpendicular height. [Sidenote: COTTON.]