SPRINGS. 51 



jmd the subterranean rivers. The waters have here 

 worked like enormous moles, and have honey-combed 

 the foundations of the earth. They have great high- 

 ways beneath the hills. Water charged with car- 

 bonic acid gas has a very sharp tooth and a power- 

 ful digestion, and no limestone rock can long resist 

 it. Sherman's soldiers tell of a monster spring in 

 Northern Alabama, a river leaping full-grown 

 from the bosom of the earth ; and of another at the 

 bottom of a large, deep pit in the rocks, that con- 

 tinues its way under ground. 



There are many springs in Florida of this char- 

 acter, large under-ground streams that have breath- 

 ing holes, as it were, here and there. In some places 

 the water rises and fills the bottoms of deep bowl- 

 shaped depressions ; in other localities it is reached 

 through round natural well-holes ; a bucket is let 

 down by a rope, and if it becomes detached is quickly 

 swept away by the current. Some of the Florida 

 springs are perhaps the largest in the world, afford- 

 ng room and depth enough for steamboats to move 

 and turn in them. Green Cove Spring is said to be 

 like a waterfall reversed ; a cataract rushing upward 

 through a transparent liquid instead of leaping down- 

 ward through the air. There are one or two of these 

 enormous springs also in Northern Mississippi, 

 springs so large that it seems as if the whole conti- 

 nent must nurse them. 



The Valley of the Shenaudoah is remarkable for 

 ! ts large springs. The town of Winchester, a town of 



