NATURAL BRIDGES. 
The mountain chains of America are distinguished from those of 
Europe by perpendicular rents or crevices, which form very narrow 
vales of immense depth. Those which occur in the Andes are covered 
below with vegetation, while their naked and barren heads soar up- 
wards to the skies. The crevices of Chota and Cutaco are nearly 
a mile deep. These tremendous gullies oppose fearful obstacles to 
travellers, and the task of crossing them is one of great toil and danger. 
They usually perform their journeys sitting in chairs fastened to the 
backs of men called cargueros or carriers. These porters are mulattoes, 
and sometimes whites, of great bodily strength, and they climb along 
the face of precipices bearing very heavy loads. 
But sometimes these crevices are crossed by natural Bridges, which 
seem to be peculiar to the new world. Those of Icononzo, or Pandi, 
in New Granada, are very remarkable. They unite two rocks, and 
beneath them roars a torrent. The rocks are formed of two different 
kinds of sandstone, the one hard and compact, and the other soft 
and slaty. ^ The crevice is supposed to have been formed by an earth- 
quake, which tore away the softer stone while the harder resisted 
the violence of the shock. This natural arch is forty seven feet long, 
forty feet broad, and six feet and a half thick in the middle, and is 
more than eight hundred feet above the surface of the torrent* Under 
this Bridge, at the distance of nearly seventy feet, is another arch, 
composed of three standing blocks of stone wedged together: these 
are supposed to have fallen from the roof at the same instant of time, 
and striking against the sides of the crevice became suddenly fixed. 
A beautiful example of a natural arch is represented in the above 
engraving. It crosses the Cedar Creek in Rockbridge county, near 
Fincastle, in the higher district of Virginia. The rock, which is of 
pure limestone, is tinted with various shades of grey and brown. The 
chasm is about ninety feet wide, and the walls two hundred and thirty 
feet high.: tbese are covered here and there with trees and shrubs, 
which also overhang from the top, and numerous gay flowers adorn 
the dazzling steeps. The Bridge is of such solidity that loaded wag- 
gons can pass over it. 
A recent writer, describing a visit to this Bridge, says : — " It was 
now early in July; the trees were in their brightest and thickest 
foliage; and the tall beeches under the arch contrasted their verdure 
with the grey rock and received the gilding of the sunshine, as it slanted 
into the ravine, glittering in the drip from the arch, and in the splashing 
and tumbling waters of Cedar Creek which ran by our feet. Swallows 
were flying about under the arch. What others of their tribe can 
boast of such a home ?" 
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE 
SOCIETY FOR PBOMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
No. 13.] 
Price Plain ; 2t/, Coloured. 
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