Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/36

26 they have been dammed up by the Blue ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that continuing to riſe they have at length broken over at this foot, and have torn the mountain down from its ſummit to its baſe. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their diſrupture and avulſion form their beds by the moſt powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impreſſion. But the diſtant finiſhing which nature has given to the picture, is of a very different character. It is a true contraſt to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful, as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven aſunder, the preſents to your eye, through the cleft, a ſmall catch of ſmooth blue horizon, at an infinite diſtance in the plain country, inviting you as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to paſs through the breach and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately compoſes itſelf; and that way too the road happens actually to lead. You croſs the Patowmac above the junction, paſs along its ſide through the baſe of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within about 20 miles reach Fredericktown, and the fine country round that. This ſcene is worth a voyage acroſs the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the Natural Bridge, are people who have paſſed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have never been to ſurvey theſe monuments of a war between rivers and mountains, which muſt have ſhaken the earth itſelf to its centre. (B.)