This great curiosity is in Scott County, about 12 miles west of
Estillville, the county seat. The following description of it is from
the "American Journal of Geology."
"To form an adequate idea of this remarkable and truly sublime object,
we have only to imagine the creek, to which it gives a passage,
meandering through a deep narrow valley, here and there bounded on both
sides by walls or revêtements, rising to the height of two or three
hundred feet above the stream; and that a portion of one of these
chasms, instead of presenting an open thorough cut from the summit to
the base of the high grounds, is intercepted by a continuous, unbroken
ridge, more than three hundred feet high, extending entirely across the
valley, and perforated transversely at its base, after the manner of an
artificial tunnel, and thus affording a spacious subterranean channel
for the passage of the stream.
"The entrance to the Natural Tunnel, on the upper side of the ridge, is
imposing and picturesque, in a high degree; but on the lower side, the
grandeur of the scene is greatly heightened by the superior magnitude
of the cliffs, which exceed in loftiness, and which rise
perpendicularly--and in some instances in an impending manner--more
than three hundred feet; and by which the entrance on this side is
almost environed, as it were, by an amphitheatre of rude and frightful
precipices.
"The observer, standing on the brink of the stream, at the distance of
about one hundred yards below the debouchure of the Natural Tunnel,
has, in front, a view of its arched entrance, rising seventy or eighty
feet above the water, and surmounted by horizontal stratifications of
yellowish, white, and gray rocks, in depth nearly twice the height of
the arch. On his left, a view of the same mural precipice, deflected
from the springing of the arch in a manner to pass in a continuous
curve quite to his rear, and towering in a very impressive manner above
his head. On his right, a sapling growth of buckeye, poplar, lindens,
&c., skirting the margin of the creek, and extending obliquely to the
right, and upwards through a narrow, abrupt ravine, to the summit of
the ridge, which is here, and elsewhere, crowned with a timber-growth
of pines, cedar, oaks, and shrubbery of various kinds. On his extreme
right is a gigantic cliff, lifting itself up perpendicularly from the
water's edge, to the height of about three hundred feet, and
accompanied by an insulated cliff, called The Chimney, of about the
same altitude, rising in the form of a turret, at least sixty feet
above its basement, which is a portion of the imposing cliff just
before mentioned."