Connecticut western news., 1894-04-19
THE NATURAL BRIDGEoF VIRGINIA

After driving fourteen miles from Lexington amidst the beautiful farming lands of the famous Valley of Virginia we arrived at Appledore Inn, the hostel ry of Natural Bridge. Having dined, we walked up the highway past the hotel and discovered that we were upon the Great Natural Bridge. The ap- breaches and the sides of. the bridge are SO covered with trees and under brush that one may pass over this natural curiosity without knowing it. A path leads one from the highway to Pulpit Rock, and it is here that we had our first view of the immensity and grandeur of this freak of Nature. Gaz- ing downward over the edge of the precipice an almost ungovernable de. sire seizes one to throw himself over the brink, as 1t were, to more fully gather all this grandeur within bis grasp, so intoxicating is the sight.
 Returning from Pulpit Rock, we de- scended by steep path to the Glen, passing on the way probably the lar gest arbor-vitae trees in the world. One of the trees is sixteen feet in cir conference, and its age is estimated to be fifteen hundred years. In the Glen we came to the stream which the bridge spans, and looking upward we began to comprehend the immensity of the structure, as the large trees were but as shrubs when compared to the height of the bridge, naturally so since the height cf the bridge is two hundred and fifteen feet A description says, "1t is wide enough to span Broadway and high enough to throw 8 shadow over the spire of Trinity church." The span, think, is about sixty feet and the width of the roadway some ninety feet. The arch is regular and as smooth as if cut with chisel, and the faces of this limestone structure are tinted in some places dull red and ochre in other ochre and cream; this is due, no doubt, to the filtration of iron and manganese from the hills above. On one side, about twenty-five feet above the brook, the almost oblit- erated carving of the name of G. Wash ington is seen; showing that he in his boyhood days was not unlike other boys in the scratching or carving of names.
 In the canon above the bridge many more beautiful and odd works of nature are to be found.
 Professor Gray, the botanist, says: "The ravine is the finest fernery in the \ world, and also there are no less than sixty varieties of trees" At the head of the gorge the brook leaps over powders and rocks. giving the fall the appearance of a large piece of lace work whence the name Lace Water Falls has has arisen, While some workmen, years ago, were blasting in the ravine for saltpetre, stream was disclosed which leaped through the darkness oi a cavern in large volumes into passages which never have been explored. Neither the source nor the destiny oi this Lost River have ever been discov. cred. One may kneel down and look within the cavern and drink of its waters, and hear the sound of it, and know no more. There is O local tradi. ton, that, "Who drinks here shall re. turn"
 Many speculations and suggestions, scientific and otherwise, have been of ferred for the raison d'etre of the Natur al Bridge, but think that Baron de Turpin has best expressed it in his "Dieu le Fait:"
 Who laid the deep foundation, who bade the Above ihe shadowed forest, against the shin | ing skies?
 How was the marble chiselled, how were ths
 arches groined?
 | They could not pay the workmen, if Indus
 wealth were coined.
 Slow were the strokes, or swifter than Jove's
 wrath-hammered rods;
 What fires ar forces came to work in thu
 quarry of the gods2
 Triumphal arches wither, and conqueror's
 flag be furled;
 Summon the wise to answer, the wisest o | the world:
 When was mountain river without 6 seam
 or scar2
 What brooklet lifted mountains and carried | them afar2
 Whence came the blended colors no hand
 may nov combine?
 From what far vein of iron flowed the rec
 abutments' wine7
 Ten thousand came to question, but no ons
 came to tell;
 The just who cried, "God made it." hath an
 swered last and well.