This natural bridge, which has been described by Mr. Jefferson, and many
other writers, is one of the most sublime productions of nature, as well
as one of the great curiosities and wonders of the world. It is situated
in Rockbridge county, in Virginia, on the ascent of a hill which seems
to have been cloven through its length by some mighty convulsion. It
consists of a stupendous arch of limestone, spanning a small stream,
called Cedar creek. Its hight above the stream to the top, is two
hundred and fifteen feet; its average width, eighty feet; its extreme
length at the top, ninety-three feet; and its thickness, from the under
to the upper side, fifty-five feet. The chasm over which it passes, is
fifty feet wide at the bottom, and ninety feet at the top. The view from
the top is exceedingly grand and impressive; from below, equally sublime
and more interesting, because divested of associations of fear. The
bridge is of important use, forming a road over this immense chasm,
which is not otherwise passable for several miles in either direction.
The top of the bridge is covered with a coat of earth, which affords
growth to many large trees. The residue, with the hill on both sides, is
a solid rock of limestone. The arch, as is seen in the engraving of the
bridge, approaches the semi-elliptical form; though the larger axis of
the ellipsis, which would be the chord of the arch, is many times longer
than its transverse. Although the sides of this bridge are provided in
some parts with a parapet of rocks, yet few persons have sufficient
resolution to stand on them, and look over into the abyss. The passenger
involuntarily falls on his hands, creeps to the parapet and peeps over
it. Looking down from this hight, for the space of a minute, occasions
giddiness and sometimes headache. But if the view from above be so
painful as not long to be borne, that from beneath is delightful in the
extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to
be felt in a greater degree than at this spot. The sensations of the
spectator can not be described, when he surveys an arch at once so
beautiful, so elevated, and so light, springing up, as it were, to
heaven!
[Illustration]
This grand natural bridge, as already mentioned, is of limestone; and
this is so soft that it may easily be cut with a knife. In this fact
there may be a foundation for the following interesting, though somewhat
overdrawn sketch, from the graphic pen of Elihu Burritt, designed to
illustrate the effect of perseverance and an honorable ambition.
“The scene opens with a view of the great natural bridge in Virginia.
There are three or four lads standing in the channel below, looking up
with awe to that vast arch of unhewn rocks, which the Almighty bridged
over those everlasting butments ‘when the morning stars sang together.’
The little piece of sky spanning those measureless piers, is full of
stars, although it is midday. It is almost five hundred feet from where
they stand, up those perpendicular bulwarks of limestone, to the
key-rock of that vast arch, which appears to them only of the size of a
man’s hand. The silence of death is rendered more impressive by the
little stream that falls from rock to rock down the channel. The sun is
darkened, and the boys have unconsciously uncovered their heads, as if
standing in the presence-chamber of the Majesty of the whole earth. At
last, this feeling begins to wear away; they look around, and find that
others have been there before them. They see the names of hundreds cut
in the limestone butments. A new feeling comes over their young hearts,
and their knives are in their hands in an instant. ‘What man has done,
man can do,’ is their watchword, while they draw themselves up, and
carve their names a foot above those of a hundred full-grown men who
have been there before them. They are all satisfied with this feat of
physical exertion, except _one_, whose example illustrates perfectly the
forgotten truth, that there is _no royal road to intellectual eminence_.
This ambitious youth sees a name just above his reach, a name that will
be green in the memory of the world, when those of Alexander, Cæsar, and
Bonaparte, shall rot in oblivion. It was the name of Washington. Before
he marched with Braddock to that fatal field, _he_ had been there, and
left his name a foot above all his predecessors. It was a glorious
thought of the boy, to write his name side by side with that of the
great father of his country. He grasps his knife with a firmer hand;
and, clinging to a little jutting crag, he cuts again into the
limestone, about a foot above where he stands; he then reaches up and
cuts another for his hands. ’Tis a dangerous adventure; but as he puts
his feet and hands into those gains, and draws himself up carefully to
his full length, he finds himself a foot above every name chronicled in
that mighty wall. While his companions are regarding him with concern
and admiration, he cuts his name in rude capitals, large and deep, into
that rocky album. His knife is in his hand, and strength in his sinews,
and a new created aspiration in his heart. Again he cuts another niche,
and again he carves his name in larger capitals. This is not enough.
Heedless of the entreaties of his companions, he cuts and climbs again.
The graduations of his ascending scale grow wider apart. He measures his
length at every gain he cuts. The voices of his friends wax weaker and
weaker, till their words are finally lost on his ear. He now for the
first time casts a look beneath him. Had that glance lasted a moment,
that moment would have been his last. He clings with a convulsive
shudder to his little niche in the rock. An awful abyss awaits his
almost certain fall. He is faint with severe exertion, and trembling
from the sudden view of the dreadful destruction to which he is exposed.
His knife is worn half-way to the haft. He can hear the voices, but not
the words, of his terror-stricken companions below. What a moment! What
a meager chance to escape destruction! There is no retracing his steps.
It is impossible to put his hands into the same niche with his feet, and
retain his slender hold a moment. His companions instantly perceive this
new and fearful dilemma, and await his fall with emotions that ‘freeze
their young blood.’ He is too high, too faint, to ask for his father and
mother, his brothers and sisters, to come and witness or avert his
destruction. But one of his companions anticipates his desire. Swift as
the wind, he bounds down the channel, and the situation of the fated boy
is told upon his father’s hearth-stone.
“Minutes of almost eternal length roll on, and there are hundreds
standing in that rocky channel, and hundreds on the bridge above, all
holding their breath, and awaiting the fearful catastrophe. The poor
boy hears the hum of new and numerous voices both above and below. He
can just distinguish the tones of his father, who is shouting with all
the energy of despair, ‘_William! William! Don’t look down! Your
mother, and Henry, and Harriet are all here, praying for you! Don’t
look down! Keep your eye toward the top!_’ The boy didn’t look _down_.
His eye is fixed like a flint toward heaven, and his young heart on
Him who reigns there. He grasps again his knife. He cuts another
niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from
the reach of human help from below. How carefully he uses his wasting
blade! How anxiously he selects the softest places in that vast pier!
How he avoids every flinty grain! How he economizes his physical
powers! resting a moment at each gain he cuts. How every motion is
watched from below! There stand his father, mother, brother, sister,
on the very spot where, if he falls, he will not fall alone. The sun
is now half-way down the west. The lad has made fifty additional
niches in that mighty wall, and now finds himself directly under the
middle of that vast arch of rocks, earth and trees. He must cut his
way in a new direction, to get from under this overhanging mountain.
The inspiration of hope is dying in his bosom; its vital heat is fed
by the increasing shouts of hundreds perched upon cliffs and trees,
and others who stand with ropes in their hands on the bridge above, or
with ladders below. Fifty gains more must be cut before the longest
rope can reach him. His wasting blade strikes again into the
limestone. The boy is emerging painfully, foot by foot, from under
that lofty arch. Spliced ropes are ready in the hands of those who are
leaning over the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more, and all
will be over. That blade is worn to the last half-inch. The boy’s head
reels; his eyes are starting from their sockets. His last hope is
dying in his heart; his life must hang upon the next gain he cuts.
That niche is his last. At the last faint gash he makes, his knife,
his faithful knife, falls from his little nerveless hand, and, ringing
along the precipice, falls at his mother’s feet. An involuntary groan
of despair runs like a death-knell through the channel below, and all
is still as the grave. At the hight of nearly three hundred feet, the
devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart and closing eyes to commend his
soul to God. ’Tis but a moment—there!—one foot swings off!—he is
reeling—trembling—toppling over into eternity! Hark! a shout falls on
his ear from above! The man who is lying with half his length over the
bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy’s head and shoulders. Quick as
thought, the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth. No one
breathes. With a faint, convulsive effort, the swooning boy drops his
arms into the noose. Darkness comes over him, and with the words,
_God!_ and _Mother!_ whispered on his lips just loud enough to be
heard in heaven, the tightening rope lifts him out of his last shallow
niche. Not a lip moves while he is dangling over that fearful abyss;
but when a sturdy Virginian reaches down and draws up the lad, and
holds him up in his arms before the tearful, breathless multitude,
such shouting and leaping and weeping for joy, never greeted the ear
of a human being so recovered from the yawning gulf of eternity.”
We will only add before leaving the subject of natural bridges, that the
one in Virginia is not, as has been generally supposed, the only
geological wonder of the kind in the United States. In Carter county,
Kentucky, there is a natural bridge across the Rockbridge branch of the
Cany fork of Little Sandy. It has a span of one hundred and ninety-five
feet, and is twelve feet wide, twenty feet thick in the middle of the
arch, and one hundred and seven feet above the water. In the county of
Walker, in Alabama, there is another similar natural curiosity, which
was discovered in a recent geological exploration. The span is one
hundred and twenty feet, and the hight nearly seventy feet. This bridge
is formed of sandstone, and is very symmetrical. Large beech and hemlock
trees grow on the bridge, and the surrounding scenery is represented as
sublime.
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