--

"During the past summer, I visited a remarkable natural bridge in Scott
county, Virginia, to which I have given the name of Natural Tunnel, on
account of its striking resemblance to artificial structures of that
kind.

"The immediate locality of this tunnel is upon a small stream called
Buck-eye, or Stock Creek. This last name owes its origin to its valley
having been resorted to by the herdsmen of the country, for the
attainment of a _good range_, or choice pasture-ground, for their
cattle. The creek rises in Powell's mountain, and is tributary to Clinch
river, which it enters at the distance of between two and three miles
below the tunnel. The aspect of the surrounding country, and especially
of that to the northward of the tunnel, and constituting the southerly
slope of the mountain just mentioned, is exceedingly diversified, and
broken by elevated spurs and ridges, separated from each other by deep
chasms, walled with cliffs and mural precipices, often presenting
exceedingly narrow passes, but occasionally widening into meadows or
bottoms of considerable extent. The mural precipices just mentioned
occur very frequently, bounding the valleys of the streams generally in
this part of the country, and opposing ramparts of formidable height,
and in many places utterly insurmountable. Such are the features
peculiarly characteristic of _Wild Cat Valley_, the _Valley of
Copper Creek_, of Powell's and Clinch rivers, and of numerous other
streams of less note, all of which are situated within a few miles of
the Natural Tunnel.

"To form an adequate idea of this remarkable and truly sublime object,
we have only to imagine the creek to which it gives a passage,
meandering through a deep, narrow valley, here and there bounded on both
sides by walls, or _revetements_, of the character above intimated,
and rising to the height of two or three hundred feet above the stream;
and that a portion of one of these chasms, instead of presenting an
open, _thorough cut_ from the summit to the base of the high
grounds, is intercepted by a continuous unbroken ridge, more than three
hundred feet high, extending entirely across the valley, and perforated
transversely at its base, after the manner of an artificial tunnel, and
thus affording a spacious subterranean channel for the passage of the
stream.

"The entrance to the Natural Tunnel on the upper side of the ridge
is imposing and picturesque in a high degree; but on the lower side