Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1881-07-08

soul here offered to visitors will keep the
house crowded if there IS nothing but corr
dodgers and fat bacon on the bill of fare
The hotel will have some seventy rooms.-
The first story is built of the native lime.
stone, the balance frame with long porticos
running around the building and mansard
roof. 1t will be very'handsome.
A big enterprise at Luray is the steam
tannery of DeFord & Co., of Baltimore
Nothing like it has ever been seen in Vir.
ginia before. The main building is 500
feet long and contains nearly 200 great
watts 10 feet deep. The upper story is for
dressing the hides. The teaching house,
engine house, bark sheds, &c., are all on a
large scale and the immense quantities of
tan bark already slowed away would seem
inexhaustible. The establishment will
give occupation to hundreds of hands.
There are also two new planning mills 10
operation at Luray, owned by Warren,
Prince & Co., and Caruthers & Walton,
which are kept busy by the extensive build
| ing going on.
1t is pretty generally known that the
cave property has been bought by the rail-
road company at cost of $4,000. The
cave, the hotel and the eating house will
be run in the same interest. Mr.. R. R,
Corson is the Superintendent of the whole.
He is a gentleman who understands his
business and is rapidly making a success
of the enterprise. Col. Mann S. Splitter.
well known as late public spirited men,
Der of the Virginia Senate, is the compa-
ny's depot agent and his pleasant way with
strangers adds to the general satisfaction
a visitor feels while stopping here, and he
can't help seeing that every one, even to
the waiter at the restaurant, who brings
him cup of coffee that can't be beat in
the United States, has the same object in
view, that of contributing to his comfort
and entertainment in every possible way.
But
THE CAVE.
That is the thing of Luray after all and
find all reporters fight shy Of it as I have
done in making it last at Luray when it
ought to be, as it is of right, first. You don It
like to tackle thing like that. You go
down into the bowels OF the earth and
witness the wonderful, unaccountable and
indescribable tricks that Nature has been
playing there with herself all along for
| thousands and thousands of years until it
seems that for want of company she had
gone stark mad, and the wonderful things
| she has worked out down there are so un-
like anything else you ever saw that you
can't find words that will fit the case and
have to come to the humiliating convic-
tion that you are beat at your own game.
Go to that huge fallen column and try if
you can to compute even the centuries it
has lain there and grown to the rocks
around it and then get at the centuries
upon centuries that it took to make it be-
fore it fell, and then bring yourself right
up against the 5000 years since the crea-
tion and you have to give it up. Stand
by the Frozen Fountain and get some ad-
jectives that will fill the bill if you can. De
scribe the ETHEREAL beauty of Titania's
Veil, the grace of the Angels wing, the
transparency of the springs and fountains
| with their fragile fringe of frost. Stand
on the brink of Pultos chasm, take in the
specters and hobgoblins that raise their
weird forms, bob their heads and blink
their eyes at you, but describe them if you
can and you will convey to those who lave
not seen it some idea of this most wonder
full cavern, this put up job on the nineteenth
century. will not undertake the task,
| one must see to understand. He cannot
read this wonderful book of nature through
anybody else's glasses.
| THE TREsTLEs.
After leaving Luray the country grows
billy and broken, the road passes over
many high and long trestles which cause
some uneasiness to travellers unacauainted
with the road or the precautiOn taken in
passing these places. The speed is alway S
moderated to a rate at which a car wheel
is never known to break. and looking back
after passing one of these trestles watch
man with bucket of water will always
be seen to step out and follow tie train
looking out carefully for sparks from the
engine, examining the rails, stills and ties
and making security doubly sure. The
longest of these trestles is Jerryman's Run
1880 feet and the highest is Honey Run
1O4 feet.
Striking the river again at Riverton, 9
pretty place where the Manassas Gap road
crosses the Shenandoah, we have two
lime kilns of Carson & Son, where tht
finest lime in the world is made, lit tool
the premium at the Centennial,) big
spoke factory and famous water tor bas'
fishing. Then speeding along another 81
miles, we come to the old but not sleep!
town of Charlestown, nesting among thu
trees in one of the richest sections O.
West Virginia. This town has some in
teresting old memories attached to it an(
some interesting memories not so old. Tit
visitor is shown the old homestead of tn
Washingtons. the ancient Episcopa
church which is known to have beer
standing 40 years and how much Longer
tradition does not tell. 1t has been roof
less more than half century, and still
the cedar window stills and carvings OF
them, and the thick white plastering, GOV
cred over with many a name and initia
clings fast to it's walls of rough hewl
stone. Thanks to the courtesy Of Geo. w
Haines, of the 'Spirt of Jefferson" w
had pleasant drive to this interesting OLE
ruin, also had good view of the scener.
which met the last look Of John Brown OF
the scaffold.
A number of citizens are still living here
who witnessed the trial and execution O.
this canonized old man as well as thu
many stirring scenes of the war which fol