Note (return) — NATURAL TUNNEL, IN VIRGINIA.

"Saturday, Aug. 13, 1831. Having ascended Cove ridge, we turned aside from our route to visit the natural bridge, or tunnel, situated on Buck-eye, or Stock creek, about a mile below the Sycamore camp,2 and about one and a half miles from a place called Rye cove, which occupies a spacious recess between two prominent spurs of Powell's mountain, the site of the natural tunnel being included within a spur of Cove ridge, which is one of the mountain spurs just alluded to. Here is presented one of the most remarkable and attractive curiosities of its kind, to be witnessed in this or any other country. The creek, which is about seven yards wide, and has a general course about S. 15 W., here passes through a hill elevated from two to three hundred feet above the surface of the stream, winding its way through a huge subterraneous cavern, or grotto, whose roof is vaulted in a peculiar manner, and rises from thirty to seventy or eighty feet above its floor. The sides of this gigantic cavern rise perpendicularly in some places to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and, in others, are formed, by the springing of its vaulted roof immediately from its floor. The width of the tunnel varies from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet. Its course is that of a continuous curve, resembling the letter S; first winding to the right as we enter on the upper side, then to the left, again to the right, and then again to the left on arriving at the entrance on the lower side. Such is its peculiar form, that an observer, standing at a point about midway of its subterranean course, is completely excluded from a view of either entrance, and is left to grope in the dark through a distance of about twenty yards, occupying an intermediate portion of the tunnel. When the sun is near the meridian, and his rays fall upon both entrances, the light reflected from both extremities of the tunnel contributes to mollify the darkness of this interior portion into a dusky twilight.