A Singular Product Of The Region Is The Flexible Sandstone.

It is a most uncanny stone.

A slip of it a couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the hand like a half-frozen snake. This conduct of a substance that we have been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in the stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.

This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of starting up business and creating bad blood. Fortunes have been made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years. The mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this region one of lawlessness and violence. The travelers were told stories of the lack of common morality and decency in the region, but they made no note of them. And, perhaps fortunately, they were not there during court week to witness the scenes of license that were described. This court week, which draws hither the whole population, is a sort of Saturnalia. Perhaps the worst of this is already a thing of the past; for the outrages a year before had reached such a pass that by a common movement the sale of whisky was stopped (not interdicted, but stopped), and not a drop of liquor could be bought in Bakersville nor within three miles of it.

The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence. The main building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square. The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his head through. Attached to this is a room for the jailer. In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet high. Between this cage and the wall is a space of eighteen inches in width. It has a narrow door, and an opening through which the food is passed to the prisoners, and a conduit leading out of it. Of course it soon becomes foul, and in warm weather somewhat warm. A recent prisoner, who wanted more ventilation than the State allowed him, found some means, by a loose plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall opposite the window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the jailer a good sanitary arrangement, remains. Two murderers occupied this apartment at the time of our visit. During the recent session of court, ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room enough for them to lie down together. The cage in the room above, a little larger, had for tenant a person who was jailed for some misunderstanding about an account, and who was probably innocent - from the jailer's statement.

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