The Newtown bee., 1896-11-13
Famous Natural Bridge
VISITOR DESCRIBES VIRGNIA's GREAT
  MARVEL.
From The Atlanta (Ga.) Journal l

MARVEL.
 From The Atlanta (Ga.) Journal
 That is where they let down the rope to the boy. He jumped from that little ledge you see away up there--that bird just flew past it land caught the rope as 1 it swung toward him."
 We looked up, stretched our heads back until our necks ached.
 "Is that story really true?"
 "The old settlers around here say so. The boy was a student from Washington and Lee, which is not very far from here. Of course, the account of the feat, usual Iy found in Fifth Readers, is good deal exaggerated. There was no crowd watching while he climbed, as the story says; only few of his friends were with him; but it is true that boy really did climb nearly to the top of the bridge. You see that ledge up there almost und r the arch? When he reached that place he could climb no further on account of the arching over the bridge. Then they say he looked back to see how to climb down again. You know it's a fact that you can climb up much easier than down."-there may be a deeper signif- canoe to those words, l thought. When you look downward everything appears to be smoother. So there the boy hung nearly 200 feet from the ground, unable to move one way or the other"
 We looked again up to that tiny pro- lection not much bigger than the bowl of a spoon, it seemed, from that great distance. It was awful. (Later, when we went to the top of the bridge, we looked down; it was frightful.)
 We were standing under the shadow of that fearful monuments of the Builder who knows no limits, the bridge. whose walls are mountains and whose buttresses are peaks. The raVine is so deep the sun shines in only about noon. And all this magnificence of architecture royalty thrown away on mere wading stream it's fish no bigger than minnows. But the Builders quarry, likewise, knows no limits.
 DISAPPOINTMENT AT FIRST VIEW.
 
 The approach to the bridge is by mar row, tortuous, rapidly decending path. A small stream tumbles down the mount ain beside us all the way. The deep foli. age of the trees keeps us hidden from a view of the bridge, until a sharp turn to the right suddenly brings us up almost under it.
 But the first sight, perhaps, is little disappointing. The mind has to take time, to adjust itself to these enormous dimensions. As we approach it, at length stand just under the bridge itself, and look upward, perhaps even than we are still little disappointed, until sud denly we are startled by faint crying flock of swallows flying under the bridge then we begin to comprehend it's dizzy altitude.
 The approach is not so impressive as the opposite view on account of the dip ping of the arch on that side. To wall a hundred feet furthur on, passing under the bridge; and then look back at It, one catches the curves of it's enormous con vexity, and the lift of it's span. On this side, also, the two mountains that but tress the bridge rapidly rise for some distance further on; consequently thC ravine walls are much higher. All thest things combine to make the latter view of the bridge very impressive.
 Cathedral wall nearly 300 feet high straight as the side of house, buttress ed and turreted, towers up on one side Across the ravine from it, overhanginl the abyss below, is little ledge of rocl not ten feet square, Pulpit Rock. Her one may stand and look Delow-if he can and try to realize the horror of tha boy when he ' caught the faint echoe of the people beneath him shouting t. him to jump for the rope" In an oil Virginia history there is 8 statemen that when the boy was drawn up his hai had turned white.
 ALL ROCK, SOLID AND GHosILY.
 Nothing grows down the sides of thi ravine. It is all rock, solid and ghostIy If one were to slip, he would strik , against nothing on his way until struck the ground. There is scarcel place for bird to alight. How did th boy climb it? The story goes that h had a knife and cut footholes betwee the rock rimss
 And it is narrow, that little silver TUT ming ravine; just room enough for if , brook and footpath beside it. It r narrow and cold under the shadow ( s these eternal ramparts. When birds fl 6 down into it they merely drop; there l, not room to use their wings. The