THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



glacial period came to her very feet, wavered, and then retreated. Pre- 

 historic man, whose mounds stand high above the lowlands of Pope county, 

 passed up and down this valley as did the Indian, whose stone walled 

 graves lie in the ridge a few miles away. The white pioneer cleared the 

 forest, drove the Indian away, and developed the farms and the mines. 

 She saw it all, and grew old and wrinkled watching the strivings and 

 follies of men. She reflects the struggles of men and knows the true 

 philosophy of life. 



Emphasis is added to the above when we remember that less than a 

 fourth of a mile below, there is the "silver mine," an abandoned shaft sunk 

 years ago by a stranger who came and put his small fortune into it, search- 

 ing for a greater fortune which was not there. Another feature which 

 adds interest to the scenic features of this limited region is a small sand- 

 stone cave under the cliff a few hundred feet away. This is merely the 

 result of weathering of the softer under-portions of the stone, but is 

 typical of much more extensive caverns elsewhere, one of which I shall 

 describe in detail later. 



Perhaps, nowhere in the State, is the enormity of Nature's work in de- 

 positing and then removing great quantities of rock better shown than in 

 this vicinity three or four miles to the southwest at Womble Mountain, 

 a mesa-like rock of red sandstone having an area of about ten acres, being 

 split diagonally across, displaying fore-set beds and other evidences of 

 shore lines, and standing far above the surrounding valleys. The even 

 sky line as seen looking from it across twenty miles of the Ozark hills into 

 Kentucky, together with the corresponding strata across the valleys, make it 

 clear that these same valleys once filled with stratified rock laid down 

 under the sea and then elevated, have been carved out by running water 

 and that the process still continues. 



The perpendicular walls of this mesa show two degrees of weathering, 

 one of long continuance giving a long talus slope on all sides with "slide, 

 rock" such as Hornaday describes in the Canadian Rockies, and another 

 more recent where huge blocks have fallen off and rolled down the talus 

 slope. One of these is two hundred and twenty-five feet in circumference 

 and thirty-five feet high, locally known as "Table Rock," has slid down 

 a hundred feet, remaining horizontal. The east and south sides show 



little weathering as does, 

 also, the corresponding niche 

 in the cliff above from which 

 it came, while the west and 

 north sides are rugged as is 

 the undisturbed portion of 

 the cliff. Large trees grow 

 between this block and its 

 former position. There is 

 nowhere much evidence of 

 gradation between these two 

 stages of weathering over a 

 carefully studied region ex- 



Clarence Bonnell- 

 TABLE ROCK 



-Photo. 



