The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1874-11-12
Letter from Roanoke.

CATAWBA NALLE1-fILoI hNpb-AS Az
LANCHE OF RoCK-1NTERN1TTENT SPRING
MURDER HoLE-MISERAL WEALTH OF THE
SECIloN-rALLEY EXTENSION, ETC., ETC.
Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.l
CATAwBA VALLEY, ROANOKE COUNTY. NA..}
November I, 1874.
write from this pretty little valley, nest
ling between two great spurs OF the Blue
Ridge, whose beetlng cliffs frown down upon
one of the most picturesque spots our wan
deringS have ever brought Us into. Jutting
out abruptly for half a mile along the SUM-
NIT of one Of the tallest Of these peaks,
known as "Pilot Knob" is line of
huge precipitous rocks which hang
over the valley, presenting their steep
white sides to the traveller, who looks
up with awe from the road, many hundred
feet below. 1t takes but a small stretch
of the imagination to see in this, natures
masterpiece. huge fortress with its embat-
tied towers and impregnable walls. But,
there in the face of the steep, white wall is
an embra>ure-an immense gap in the face
of the solid limestone clitf-such as the ar
tiiery Of heaven could only have made. The
occasion was some twenty years ago, and is
fresh in the memory OF the writer, then
school-boy, when, during storm, while the
elements were at war, the lightning fash
inc. and the thunderS shaking those ever
lasting hills, the Inhabitants of that quiet
valley were aroused from their midnight
SAUNDERS by a strange shaking OF the earth
and q dreadful rumblng sound on the noun
tain, while q stream OF IRE seemed pouring
down its steep, black side. One Of those
huge cliffs which had stood sentinel over
the valley while centuries rolled by had been
rL. lNol hir.r
avalanche down the mountain, carrying eve
rything before it and swapping of the largest
trees OF the forest like pipe-Stems in its path,
and threatening with destruction the dwell
erS below.
1t is related that an old lady living near
the foot of the mountain started from her
sleep and rushed to the door, the noise,
the trembling of the earth, and the fire from
the grinding and crushing rocks, producing
the impression that the end oftime had come.
The light Of morning showed that for the
aged person the dread day had been very
near at hand, for the rock, after throwing of
hundreds of great fragments and leaving the
ground in its wake streWn with ds6rtS, had
fallen upon its side and stopped just above
her dwelling, where it now lies, huge
boulder, easily seen from the road below
with the wide, barren track through the
forest-9rowth clean up the mountain.side to
the point where the avalanche started. Ma.
ture has played other freaks in this locality,
among which we visited the Intermittent
Spring and Murder Hole. The Wis
itor to this strange spring may happen to APP
prOach it at an hour of the day when it is its
whim TO be at rest. He may sit him down
by hole in the ground as dry as Moses's
rock in the wilderness of Horeb. But let
him wait till the spirit moves the waters.
Ere long there are strange sounds OF COM
motion down there in the secret depths of
that natural well, which increase as the noise
approaches the surface, as though an unseen
hand was pumping vigorously. Finally,
with rush and splash the hole is sudden
IL TILED with clear, cold water, which, over
flowing its bounds, rushes in full, bright
stream down the mountain gorge. This part
of the performance will continue an hour or
so, when the water suddenly ceases to flow
out Of its basin, and sinks as rapidly
out Of sight as if hole had been
knocked in the bottom. That Is the pro-
o ramme three or four times day IN wet
weather-Dot more than once in tWenty-iour
hours if the season is dry one. These are
the facts. Let lis have the science from some
of your knowing readers.
Murder Hole, with its legend, IS by no
means an interesting pace-an apparently
bottomless chasm, at first sight, upon the
summit of mountain ridge, large enough TO
hold city hotel and deep enough to almost
latch the scent Of birthstone at the DOT:
TOM; for your venturous correspondent, Dy
Inc aid of bushes and shrubs, roots ana JUL
ing rocks, and any sort of " hand-holt or
!. foot-holt" he could get, managed to WORK
MS way to the bottom, with vague
sort of hope of finding human
skeleton with the skull mashed 10, and an
empty purse, or rusty jack-knife, or some. |
hing OF the sensation order; for they told
rs some fellow, they didn't know who, with
, pocket full of money,-they didn't know
low much-had been killed there some
lime. thew didn't know when or By whom,
ais money kept in circulation, and bis corpus
lropped quietly into the hole. Hence the
name. But we found nothing but moss, ana
mold. and bats. So we scrambled back TO
ezra trina minus all of our romance ana
,oodly portion of our cuticle.
This (Catawba) valley has considera- |
Die population of its own; Roanoke
,as a township in it; Botetourt has
district the Red Sulphur Springs Com
amy have an improved watering:
,lace of well.deseryed reputation; ana
he mountains are rich with iron, coal, ana
timber. all hemmed in by natures barriers,
md no railroad within twelve miles. Ihe
Valley extension would come may sayi