462 



UNITED STATES, 



and within about twenty miles reach FredericktowDj 

 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 

 war between rivers and mountains, which must havd 

 shaken the earth itself to its centre. 



The height of the mountains has not yet been esti- 

 mated with any degree of exactness. The AUeghany^ 

 being the great ridge which divides the waters of the 

 Atlantic from those of the Mississippi, its summit is 

 doubtless more elevated above the ocean than that of 

 any other mountain. But its relative height com- 

 pared with the base on which it stands, is not so 

 great as tha-t of some others, the country rising be- 

 hind the successive ridges like the steps of stairs. * 



The following brief description of a cave, vulgarly 

 called the Devil's Hoie^'* lying in Durham town- 

 ship, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and about fifty 

 miles north of Philadelphia, may not, perhaps, be 

 unacceptable to some of our readers. It certainly 

 ranks among the natural curiosities of this country, 

 and deserves greater publicity than that which has 

 been given it by historians. 



The entrance into this grotto is about one hundred 

 yards west of the Delawai'e river ; and from one 

 hundred and fifty to two hundred, north, from the 

 point of land at the confluence of Durham creek and 

 said river. The height of the eminence inclosing 

 the cavity, is from two hundred to two hundred and 

 thirty feet above the level of the circumjacent land. 

 * Jefferson's Notes. 



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