A Book of the United States: Exhibiting its geography, divisions, constitution, and government ... and presenting a view of the republic generally, and of the individual states; together with a condensed history of the land, from its first discovery to the present time. The biography of about two hundred of the leading men: a description of the principal cities and towns; with statistical tables
History
A Book of the United States: Exhibiting its geography, divisions, constitution, and government ... and presenting a view of the republic generally, and of the individual states; together with a condensed history of the land, from its first discovery to the present time. The biography of about two hundred of the leading men: a description of the principal cities and towns; with statistical tables
United States -- Biography; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- History
Advancing through a narrow passage in the rocks, we enter still other
apartments, resembling the first in the beauty of their formations,
but of different shape and extent. The sparry incrustations assume a
thousand fantastic figures, sparkling with light, and more like the
wonders of fairy land, than the original productions of nature. This
cave is a mile and a half in extent, varying in perpendicular height
from three to forty feet, and in breadth from two to thirty. Its
dividing branches are numerous. Blue limestone is the base of the
whole cave; every where covered with incrustations of carbonates.
In some places the uneven sides of the rocks are quite covered with
white crystals of the carbonate of lime, and appear like banks of salt.
Sometimes the pavement sparkles as a floor of diamonds; and again the
pathway is pebbled, and resembles the deserted bed of a river. It is
impossible to convey any idea of the number and variety of shapes which
the stalactites assume; resembling every thing in nature, and in the
worlds of imagination, they are still unlike every thing but themselves.
The _Nicojack Cave_ is situated in the Cherokee country, at Nicojack,
the north-western angle in the map of Georgia. We believe it was first
fully described by the Rev. E. Cornelius. It is twenty miles south-west
of the Look-Out Mountain, and half a mile from the south bank of the
Tennessee river. The Raccoon Mountain, in which it is situated, here
fronts to the north-east. Immense layers of horizontal limestone form a
precipice of considerable height. In this precipice the cave commences;
not however with an opening of a few feet, as is common; but with a
mouth fifty feet high, and one hundred and sixty wide. Its roof is
formed by a solid and regular layer of limestone, having no support
but the sides of the cave, and as level as the floor of a house. The
entrance is partly obstructed by piles of fallen rocks, which appear
to have been dislodged by some great convulsion. From its entrance,
the cave consists chiefly of one grand excavation through the rocks,
preserving for a great distance the same dimensions as at its mouth.
What is more remarkable than all, it forms for the whole distance
it has yet been explored, a walled and vaulted passage for a stream
of cool and limpid water, which, where it leaves the cave, is six
feet deep and sixty feet wide. A few years since, Col. James Ore, of
Tennessee, commencing early in the morning, followed the course of this
creek in a canoe, for three miles. He then came to a fall of water, and
was obliged to return, without making any further discovery. Whether
he penetrated three miles of the cave or not, it is a fact he did not
return till the evening, having been busily engaged in his subterranean
voyage for twelve hours. He stated that the course of the cave, after
proceeding some way to the south-west, became south; and south-east by
south, the remaining distance.
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