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1870.] succession of short falls below. There are graceful shadows on the rocky face of the cliff; miniature rainbows hang around the falling waters; and for a hundred yards, such is the force of the main fall, the mist floats in the sun beams and dances in our faces. The framing of the picture is curious. The entire structure of rock is seamed like masonry, and the abutments are almost as well defined as if the hand of man had reared them. But the other surroundings of the scene overpower the suggestion of Art having intruded here. A mountain crested with towering plumes guards the scene, and Nature reigns in unbroken grandeur around.

Valley of Virginia properly extends from the wall of the Alleghany to the edge of the terrace known as the Atlantic slope, which rises above the maritime or Atlantic plain—this latter at its extremity south of Virginia joining the plain of the Mississippi. The features of it are ridges of hills and

long valleys running parallel to the mountains. It is rich in soil and cultivation, and has an immense water-power in the streams and rivers which, flowing from the mountains across it, are precipitated over its rocky edge to the plains below. It has been calculated that Rockbridge county alone has in water-power and sites a capacity for manufacturing greater than that of the whole State of Massachusetts!

In a more limited and more common acceptation, the Valley of Virginia has its head in the tract of country between Lexington and Staunton, becoming well defined toward the latter place, thence gradually widening toward the Potomac, and debouching into the hill region of Pennsylvania. In the late war it was a prominent theatre of strategy, as it afforded the most obvious avenue for an attack on Washington, exposing that city to constant danger from a flank movement.

The most remarkable flexure or minor formation of the valley occurs near the middle of it. About half-way between Staunton and the Potomac two ranges of mountains run parallel for twenty-five miles, uniting in Massanutten (