University of the South
[Gasette?], Septr 23, 185[9?]
A Correspondent of the New York
_Journal_of_Commerce_, writing from Se-
wanee, Cumberland Plateau, Tennes-
see, writes interestingly concerning this
pleasant and eligble site of the proposed
"University of the South:"
It is but very recently that this part
of the country has come under the no-
tice of tourists. Prior to the construc-
tion of the Nashville and Chattanooga
Rail Road, it was _terra_incognita_,[;?] but
now, thanks to the facilities of the iron
rail, it is becoming one of the Fashion-
able resorts of the southern country.
The watering place, _par_excellence_,
is Beersheba Springs, which are daily
becoming popular--less for the virtue
of the waters than for the pure moun-
tain air, and even temperature, which
is so bracing and pleasant to those
whose home is in the low cotton lands.
The Cumberland range differs, I be-
lieve from any other mountain range in
this country, in the character of its for-
mation. It is an elevated plain from
five to forty miles in width, and when,
once on the mountain, you see only a
gently undulating region around you
without a rock or peak in sight. The
idea is well expressed by the remark of
a writer, that it seemed as though this
was the true level, and that the valleys
below had been scooped out. Pleasant
shady roads, a generous growth or tim-
ber, a meadow-like grassy surgace, ches-
nuts, oaks, pines, and elm and hickory,
give it a beautiful verdure.
Much attention is now being directed
to this locality, on account of its selec-
tion as the site of the proposed Universi-
ty of the South, under the auspices of
the ten most Southern Dioceses of the
Episcopal Church. Instead of wasting
their means in local Institutions, they
have wisely united in a powerfull effort
to establish what as yet is unknown to
this country--a true University, on a
scale as extensive as any in Europe.
The Cumberland Plateau has been
selected as its site, on account of its
elevation and salubrity, and a princely
domain of 10,000 acres has been secured
for the institution, traversed by the rail-
way of the Sewanee Mining Company.
The whole of their domain is beauti-
ful and picturesque, affording every va-
riety of scenery, from the quiet, shady
nook, the purling stream and the spark-
ling spring, to the extensive views and
tremendous chasms and cliffs along the
crest of the mountain. Imaging the
Cattskill Mountain House to be on the
margin of a plateau of miles in width,
and over a hundred in length and you will
have an idea of some of the views on the
University site. More than a hundred
springs, some of them chalybeate and
some freestone, have been discoverred
bursting from under the sandstone cap
which overlays that part of the plateau.
This principal spring, formerly called
Rainy Spring[,?] is now appropriately
EN