In Botetourt County, 19 miles. "This watering-place is 43 miles from
the White Sulphur. The buildings here are very neat and comfortable,
and sufficient for the accommodation of about 200 persons."
The following analysis of the water is by Professor Rogers:
_Solid Ingredients._
Carbonate of soda,
Sulphate of soda,
Chloride of sodium,
Carbonate of magnesia,
Peroxide of iron,
Silicia dissolved.
"Organic matter containing chloride of potassium, nitrogen, carbonate
of lime, and carbonate of ammonia.
_Gaseous Ingredients._
Carbonic acid,
Oxygen,
Sulphuretted hydrogen,
Nitrogen.
"The water of Dibrell's Spring partakes of all the general characteristics
of the other sulphur waters, and may be used with good effects in all
cases to which such waters are adapted. In certain dyspeptic
depravities, especially, it deserves a high rank among our mineral
waters."
From Dibrell's Spring the road leads by Clifton Forge, 10 miles,--the
scenery at this place is very fine,--Covington, 13 miles, and to
Calahan's, 5 miles.
Another route from Lynchburg is by stage to New London, 10 miles, to
Liberty, 15 miles. Here we would advise the traveller to leave the
stage, and make a visit to the Peaks of Otter. They are about 7 miles
northwest from this place. The following description of them is from
the Southern Literary Messenger:
"After riding about a mile and a quarter, we came to the point beyond
which horses cannot be taken, and, dismounting our steeds, commenced
ascending on foot. The way was very steep, and the day so warm, that we
had to halt often to take breath. As we approached the summit, the
trees were all of a dwarfish growth, and twisted and gnarled by the
storms of that high region. There were, also, a few blackberry bushes,
bearing their fruit long after the season had passed below. A few
minutes longer brought us to where the trees ceased to grow; but a huge
mass of rocks, piled wildly on the top of each other, finished the
termination of the peak. Our path lay for some distance around the base
of it, and under the overhanging battlements; and rather descending for
a while, until it led to a part of the pile which could with some
effort be scaled. There was no ladder, nor any artificial steps, and
the only means of ascent was by climbing over the successive rocks. We
soon stood upon the wild platform of one of nature's most magnificent
observatories, isolated and apparently above all things else
terrestrial, and looking down upon and over a beautiful, variegated,
and at the same time grand, wild, wonderful, and almost boundless
panorama. Indeed, it was literally boundless; for there was a
considerable haze resting upon some parts of 'the world below;' so
that, in the distant horizon, the earth and sky seemed insensibly to
mingle with each other. I had been there before. I remember when a boy
of little more than ten years old, to have been taken to that spot, and
how my unpractised nerves forsook me at the sublimity of the scene. On
this day it was as new as ever; as wild, wonderful, and sublime, as if
I had never before looked from those isolated rocks, or stood on that
awful summit. On one side, towards Eastern Virginia, lay a
comparatively level country, in the distance bearing strong resemblance
to the ocean; on the other hand were ranges of high mountains,
interspersed with cultivated spots, and then terminating in piles of
mountains, following in successive ranges, until they were lost also in
the haze. Above and below, the Blue Ridge and Alleghanies ran off in
long lines; sometimes relieved by knolls and peaks, and in one place
above us making a graceful curve, and then again running off in a
different line of direction. Very near us stood the rounded top of the
other peak, looking like a sullen sentinel for its neighbour. We paused
in silence for a time. We were there almost cut off from the world
below, standing where it was fearful even to look down. It was more
hazy than at the time of my last visit, but not too much so to destroy
the interest of the scene.
"There was almost a sense of pain, at the stillness which seemed to
reign. We could hear the flapping of the wings of the hawks and
buzzards, as they seemed to be gathering a new impetus after sailing
through one of their circles in the air below us. North of us, and on
the other side of the Valley of Virginia, were the mountains near
Lexington, just as seen from that beautiful village,--the Jump, North,
and House Mountains succeeding each other; they were familiar with a
thousand associations of our childhood, seeming mysteriously, when away
from the spot, to bring my early home before me--not in imagination,
such as had often haunted me when I first left to find another in the
world, but in substantial reality.
"Further on down the valley, and at a great distance, was the top of a
large mountain, which was thought to be the Great North Mountain, away
down in Shenandoah County--I am afraid to say how far off. Intermediate
between these mountains, and extending opposite and far above us, was
the Valley of Virginia, with its numerous and highly cultivated farms.
Across this valley, and in the distance, lay the remote ranges of the
Alleghany and mountains about, and, I suppose, beyond the White Sulphur
Springs. Nearer us, and separating Eastern and Western Virginia, was
the Blue Ridge, more than ever showing the propriety of its cognomen of
the 'backbone;' and on which we could distinctly see two zigzag
turnpikes, the one leading to Fincastle, and the other to Buchanan; and
over which latter we had travelled a few days before. With the
spy-glass we could distinguish the houses in the village of Fincastle,
some 25 or 30 miles off, and the road leading to the town.
"Turning towards the direction of our morning's ride, we had beneath us
Bedford County, with its smaller mountains, farms, and farm-houses--the
beautiful village of Liberty, the county roads, and occasionally a
mill-pond, reflecting the sun like a sheet of polished silver. The
houses on the hill at Lynchburg, 25 or 30 miles distant, are distinctly
visible on a clear day, and also Willis' Mountain, away down in
Buckingham County.
"I had often visited Bedford, and had been more or less familiar with
it from childhood, but at our elevation, distances were so annihilated,
and appearances so changed, that we could scarcely recognise the most
familiar object. After some difficulty, we at length made out the
residence of Dr. M., we had that morning left, and at that moment
rendered more than usually interesting by containing, in addition to
the other very dear relatives, two certain ladies, who sustained a very
interesting connexion with the Doctor and myself, and one of whom had
scarcely laid aside the blushes on her bridal hour.
"A little beyond this, I recognised the former residence of a beloved
sister, now living in a far distant southern state. It was the same
steep hill ascending to the gate, the same grove around the house, as
when she lived there, and the same as when I played there in my
boyhood. And it was the first time I had seen it since the change of
owners. I then saw it from the Peaks of Otter: but it touched a
thousand tender chords; and I almost wept when I thought that those I
once there loved were far away, and that the scenes of my youthful days
could not return.
"Myself and companions had, some time before, gotten on different
rocks, that we might not interrupt each other in our contemplations. I
could not refrain, however, from saying to one of them, 'What little
things we are! how factitious our ideas of what is extensive in
territory and distance!' A splendid estate was about the size I could
step over; and I could stand and look at the very house whence I used
to start in days gone by, and follow with my eye my day's journey to
the spot where, wearied and worn, I dismounted with the setting sun.
Yet I could look over what seemed so great a space, with a single
glance. I could also look away down the Valley of Virginia, and trace
the country, and, in imagination, the stage coach, as it slowly wound
its way, day and night for successive days, to reach the termination of
what I could throw my eye over in a moment. I was impressively reminded
of the extreme littleness with which these things of earth would all
appear, when the tie of life which binds us here is broken, and we
shall all be able to look back and down upon them from another world.
The scene and place are well calculated to excite such thoughts.
"It is said that John Randolph once spent the night on these elevated
rocks, attended by no one but his servant; and that, when in the
morning he had witnessed the sun rising over the majestic scene, he
turned to his servant, having no other to whom he could express his
thoughts, and charged him, 'Never from that time to believe any who
told him there was no God.'
"I confess, also, that my mind was most forcibly carried to the
judgment day; and I could but call the attention of my companions to
what would, probably, then be the sublime terror of the scene we now
beheld, when the mountains we saw and stood upon, should all be melted
down like wax; when the flames should be driving over the immense
expanse before us; when the heavens over us should be 'passing away
with a great noise;' and when the air beneath and around us should be
filled with the very inhabitants now dwelling, and busied in that world
beneath us."
After the traveller has gratified his curiosity beholding the Peaks of
Otter, he may resume the stage at Liberty, and proceed on his route to
the springs, via Bufort's, 14 miles; Fincastle, 14 miles; Sweet
Springs, 32 miles; Red Sweet, 1 mile; and White Sulphur, 16 miles.
Visiters to the Virginia Springs from the south or west by the Ohio
River, generally leave the river at Guyandotte, taking the stage to
Charleston, 48 miles. This beautiful town is in the rich valley of the
Kanawha, immediately on the banks of the river. About five miles from
this place are the Salines, where are to be seen the Gas-Wells. The
following interesting account of these is from the Lexington Gazette of
1843:
"These wonderful wells have been so lately discovered, that as yet only
a brief and imperfect notice of them has appeared in the newspapers.
But they are a phenomenon so very curious and interesting, that a more
complete description will doubtless be acceptable to the public.
"They are, in fact, a new thing under the sun; for in all the history
of the world, it does not appear that a fountain of strong brine was
ever before known to be mingled with a fountain of inflammable gas,
sufficient to pump it out in a constant stream, and then by its
combustion, to evaporate the whole into salt of the best quality.
"We shall introduce our account of these wells by some remarks on the
geological structure of the country at the Kanawha Salt Works, and on
the manner in which the salt water is obtained.
"The country is mountainous, and the low grounds along the river are
altogether alluvial, the whole space of a mile in width, having been at
some time the bed of the river. The rocks are chiefly sandstone of
various qualities, lying in beds, or strata, from two inches to several
feet in thickness. These strata are nearly horizontal, but dipping a
little, as in other parts of the country, towards the northwest. At the
Salt Works they have somehow been heaved up into a swell above the line
of general direction, so as to raise the deep strata nigher to the
surface, and thus to bring those in which the salt water is found
within striking distance.
"Among the sand-rocks are found layers of slate and coal; this latter
being also, by the same upheaving, made more conveniently accessible
than in most other parts of the country.
"The salt water is obtained by sinking a tight curb, or gum, at the
edge of the river, down about twenty feet, to the rock which underlies
the river, and then boring into the rock. At first the borings did not
exceed 200 feet in depth, but the upper strata of water being
exhausted, the wells were gradually deepened, the water of the lower
strata being generally stronger than the upper had ever been. Until
1842, none of the wells exceeded 6 or 700 feet in depth. Mr. Tompkins,
an enterprising salt-maker, was the first to extend his borings to a
thousand feet, or more. His experiment was attended with a most
unexpected result. He had somewhat exceeded a thousand feet, when he
struck a crevice in the rock, and forth gushed a powerful stream of
mingled gas and salt water. Generally, the salt water in the wells was
obtained in rock merely porous, and rose by hydrostatic pressure to the
level of the river. To obtain the strong water of the lower strata,
unmixed with the weak water above, it is the practice to insert a
copper tube into the hole, making it fit tightly below by means of
wrapping on the outside, and attaching the upper end to the pump, by
which the water is drawn up to the furnaces on the river bank.
"When Mr. Tompkins inserted his tube, the water gushed out so forcibly,
that instead of applying the pump, he only lengthened his tube above
the well. The stream followed it with undiminished velocity to his
water cistern, 60 feet above the level of the river.
"In the next place, he inserted the end of the spout from which the
water and gas flowed, into a large hogshead, making a hole in the
bottom to let out the water into the cistern. Thus the light gas was
caught in the upper part of the hogshead, and thence conducted by pipes
to the furnace, where it mingled with the blaze of the coal fire. It so
increased the heat as to make very little coal necessary; and if the
furnace were adapted to the economical use of this gaseous fuel, it
would evaporate all the water of the well, though the quantity is
sufficient to make five hundred bushels of salt per day. The same
gentleman has since obtained a second gas-well near the former, and in
all respects similar to it. Other proprietors of wells have also struck
gas-fountains by deep boring. In one of these wells the gas forces the
water up violently, but by fits, the gush continuing for some two or
three hours, and then ceasing for about the same length of time. In
another of these wells there has been very recently struck, a
gas-fountain that acts with such prodigious violence as to make the
tubing of the well in the usual way impossible; when the copper tube
was forced down through the rushing stream of brine and gas, it was
immediately flattened by the pressure; and the auger-hole must be
enlarged to admit a tube sufficiently strong and capacious to give vent
to the stream without being crushed. In another well, a mile and a half
from any gas-well, a powerful stream of gas has been recently struck.
It forces up the water with great power; but, unfortunately for the
proprietor, the water is too weak to be profitably worked. It appears
from this fact, that the gas is not inseparably connected with strong
brine. When struck before good salt water is reached, it will operate
injuriously, for no water obtained below it can rise at all, unless the
pressure of the gas be taken off by means of a strong tube extending
below it.
"Several wells have been bored to a depth equal to that of the
gas-wells, without striking the gas; the source of which seems to lie
below, perhaps far below, the depth of the wells. This light elastic
substance, wheresoever and howsoever generated, naturally presses
upwards for a vent, urging its way through every pore and crevice of
the superincumbent rocks; and the well-borer's auger must find it in
one of the narrow routes of its upward passage, or penetrate to its
native coal-bed before it will burst forth by the artificial vent.
"The opinion just intimated, that the gas originates in deep coal beds,
is founded on the fact that it is the same sort of gas that constitutes
the dangerous _fire-damp_ of coal-pits, and the same that is
manufactured out of bituminous coal for illuminating our cities. It is
a mixture of carburetted and sulphuretted hydrogen. Philosophers tell
us that bituminous coal becomes anthracite by the conversion of its
bitumen and sulphur into this gas, and that water acts a necessary part
in the process. Whether the presence of salt water causes a more rapid
evolution of the gas, the present writer will not undertake to say; but
somehow, the quantity generated in the salt region of Kanawha is most
extraordinary.
"It finds in this region innumerable small natural vents. It is seen in
many places bubbling up through the sand at the bottom of the river,
and probably brings up salt water with it, as in the gas-wells, but in
small quantity. The celebrated burning spring is the only one of its
natural vents apparent on dry land. This stream of gas, unaccompanied
by water, has forced its way from the rocks below, through 70 or 80
feet of alluvial ground, and within 80 yards of the river bank. It is
near this burning spring where the principal gas-wells have been found;
but, twenty-five years ago, or more, a gas-fountain was struck in a
well 200 feet deep, near Charleston, 7 miles below the burning spring.
This blew up, by fits, a jet of weak salt water 20 or 30 feet high. On
a torch being applied to it one night, brilliant flames played and
flashed about the watery column in the most wonderful manner."
Leaving the Salines, we pass on to the Falls of Kanawha, 30 miles; to
Gauley Bridge, 5 miles; and to the HAWK'S NEST, 8 miles.
MARSHALL'S PILLAR, or the HAWK'S NEST, as it is more generally called,
is in Fayette County, on New River, within a few yards of the Kanawha
Turnpike. This rocky precipice rises perpendicularly above the river,
to the height of about 1000 feet. The following account of this great
curiosity, given by a foreign traveller, is from Howe's Sketches of
Virginia, to which work we are indebted for most of the matter
respecting the curiosities of the state.
"You leave the road by a little by-path, and after pursuing it for a
short distance, the whole scene suddenly breaks upon you. But how shall
we describe it? The great charm of the whole is connected with the
point of sight, which is the finest imaginable. You come suddenly to a
spot which is called the Hawk's Nest. It projects on the scene, and is
so small as to give standing to only some half dozen persons. It has on
its head an old picturesque pine; and it breaks away at your feet,
abruptly and in perpendicular lines, to a depth of more than 1000 feet.
On this standing, which, by its elevated and detached character,
affects you like the monument, the forest rises above and around you.
Beneath, and before you, is spread a lovely valley. A peaceful river
glides down it, reflecting, like a mirror, all the lights of
heaven--washes the foot of the rocks on which you are standing--and
then winds away into another valley at your right. The trees of the
wood, in all their variety, stand out on the verdant bottoms, with
their heads in the sun, and casting their shadows at their feet; but so
diminished, as to look more like the pictures of the things than the
things themselves. The green hills rise on either hand and all around,
and give completeness and beauty to the scene; and beyond these appears
the gray outline of the more distant mountains, bestowing grandeur to
what was supremely beautiful. It is exquisite. It conveys to you the
idea of perfect solitude. The hand of man, the foot of man, seem never
to have touched that valley. To you, though placed in the midst of it,
it seems altogether inaccessible. You long to stroll along the margin
of those sweet waters, and repose under the shadows of those beautiful
trees; but it looks impossible. It is solitude, but of a most soothing,
not of an appalling character--where sorrow might learn to forget her
griefs, and folly begin to be wise and happy."
From the Hawk's Nest, the route is via Locust Lane, 2 miles; Blue
Sulphur, 40 miles; Lewisburg, 13 miles; and to the White Sulphur, 9
miles.