5666. NATURAL BRIDGE, Description.—
The Natural Bridge, the most sublime
of Nature's works, * * * is on the ascent
of a hill which seems to have been cloven
through its length by some great convulsion.
The fissure, just at the Bridge, is, by some admeasurements,
270 feet deep, by others only
205. It is about 45 feet wide at the bottom
and 90 feet at the top; this of course determines
the length of the bridge, and its height
from the water. Its breadth in the middle is
about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the
thickness of the mass, at the summit of the
arch, about forty feet. A part of this thickness
is constituted by a coat of earth, which
gives growth to many large trees. The residue,
with the hill on both sides, is one solid
rock of limestone. The arch approaches the
semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the
ellipsis, which would be the chord of the arch,
is many times longer than the semi-axis which
gives its height. Looking down from this
height about a minute, gave me a violent
headache. If the view from the top be painful
and intolerable, that from below is delightful
in an equal extreme. It is impossible
for the emotions arising from the sublime to
be felt beyond what they are here; so beautiful
an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing
as it were up to heaven, the rapture of
the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure
continuing narrow, deep and straight, for
a considerable distance above and below the
Bridge, opens a short but very pleasing view
of the North Mountain on one side and the
Blue Ridge on the other, at the distance each
of them of about five miles.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 269.
Ford ed., iii, 109.
(1782)
