-SAVE 3, 



46r 



with a strong current of air ; and at night, these va- 

 pours ascending, resemble a great furnace.'* 



In the limestone country of Virginia there are 

 many caverns of very considerable extent. Th^ 

 most noted is called Madison's Cave, and is on the 

 north side of the Blue Ridge, near the intersection of 

 the Rockingham and Augusta line with the south 

 fork of the southern river of Shenandoah, It is in a 

 hill of ^bout two hundred feet p^erpendicular height, 

 the ascent of which on one side^is so steep, that you 

 may pitch a biscuit from its summit into the river 

 which washes its base. The entrance of the cave is 

 in this side, about two-thirds of the way up. It ex- 

 tends into the earth about three hundred fecc, branch- 

 ing into subordinate caverns, sometimes ascending a 

 little, but more generally descending, and at length 

 terminates in two different places, atbasoiisof water 

 of unknown extent, and which appear to be nearly 

 on a level with the water of the river. It is probably 

 one of the many reservoirs with which the interior 

 parts of the earth are supposed to abound, and which 

 yield supplies to the fountains of water, distinguished 

 from others only by its being accessible. The vault 

 of this cave is of solid limestone, from twenty to forty 

 or fifty feet high, through which the water is conti- 

 nually exuding. This, trickling down the sides of 

 the cave, has incrusted them over in the form of ele- 

 gant drapery ; and dripping from the top of the vault, 

 generates on that, and on the base below, stalactites 

 of a conical form, some of which have met, and 

 formed massive columns. 



Another of these caves is near the North Moun- 

 tain, in the county of Frederick. The entrance into 



