from the fublime, to be felt be- yond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so lights and fpringing as it were up to heaven! the rapture of the fpeftator is really indefcribable ! The fiflure continuing narrow, deep, and ftreight, for a confiderable diftance above and below the bridge, opens a fliort but very pleafing view of the North mountain on one side, and Blue ridge on the other, at the diftance each of them of about five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rockbridge, to which it has given name, and affords a public and commodious paflage over a valley, which cannot be crofled elfewhere for a confiderable diftance. The ftream palling under it is called Cedar-creek. It is a water of James' river, and sufficient in the driefl:
feafons to turn a grift-mill, though its fountain is not more than two miles above*^ * Don Ulloa mentions a break, fimilar to this, in the province of An- garaez, in South America. It is from i6 to 22 feet wide, iii feet deep, and of 1.3 miles continuance, Englifh meafure. Its breadth at top is not fen(ibly greater than at bottom. But the following fail is remarkable, and will furnifh fome light for conje£luring the probable origin of our natural bridge. < EUa caxa, 6 cauce efta cortada en pena viva con tanta preclfion, que las defigualdades del un lado entrantes, correfponden a las del otro lado falientes, como ft aquella altura fe hubiefe abieito exprefameute, con fus bueltas y tortuofidades, para dark tranfito a los aguas por entre los dos mural -• lones que la forman ; fiendo tal fu igualdad, que li llegafen a juntarfe fe en- dentarian uno con otro fin dexar hueco.' Not. Amer. II. § 10. Don Ulloa "inclines to the opinion, that this channel has been effefted by the •wearing of the water which runs through it, rather than that the moun- tain fhould have been broken open by any convulfion of nature. But if it had been worn by the running of water, would not the rocks which form the fides, have been worn plane? or if, meeting in some parts with veins of harder ftone, the