348 Description of a JVatural Tunnel, 



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 

 i meadows or bottoms of considerable extent. The mural pre- 

 cipices just mentioned, occur very frequently, bounding the val- 

 leys 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 cha- 

 racteristic 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 sub- 

 lime 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 charac- 

 ter 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 con- 

 tinuous unbroken ridge more than three hundred feet high, ex- 

 tending 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, the grandeur of the scene is greatly heightened by 

 the superior magnitude of the cliffs, which exceed in loftiness, 

 and which rise perpendicularly — and in some instances in an im- 

 pending manner — two to three hundred feet ; and by which the 

 entrance on this side is almost environed, as it were, by an am- 

 phitheatre of rude and frightful precipices. 



The observer, standing on the brink of the stream, at the dis- 

 tance of about one hundred yards below the debouchure of the 

 natural tunnel, has, in front, a view of its arched entrance, rising 

 seventy or eighty feet above the water, and surmounted by hori- 

 zontal stratifications of yellowish, white and grey rocks, in depth 

 nearly twice the height of the arch. On his left, a view of the 

 same mural precipice, deflected from the springing of the arch in 



