Two of these natural bridges are of such vast proportions
and symmetrical structure that they rank among the wonders of the world,
and have long been the goals of pilgrimage, the shrines of travel. Their
structure would hint the requisites, and their forms the lines of
beauty, desirable in architectural prototypes. Across Cedar Creek, in
Rockbridge County, Virginia, a beautiful and gigantic arch, thrown by
elemental forces and shaped by time, extends. It is a stratified arch,
whence you gaze down two hundred feet upon the flowing water; its sides
are rock, nearly perpendicular. Popular conjecture reasonably deems it
the fragmentary arch of an immense limestone cave; its loftiness imparts
an aspect of lightness, although at the centre it is nearly fifty feet
thick, and so massive is the whole that over it passes a public road, so
that by keeping in the middle one might cross unaware of the marvel. To
realize its height it must be viewed from beneath; from the side of the
creek it has a Gothic aspect; its immense walls, clad with forest-trees,
its dizzy elevation, buttress-like masses, and aerial symmetry make this
sublime arch one of those objects which impress the imagination with
grace and grandeur all the more impressive because the mysterious work
of Nature,--eloquent of the ages, and instinct with the latent forces of
the universe.
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