A Guide to the Virginia Springs: Giving, in addition to the routes and distances, a description of the springs and also of the natural curiosities of the stateMoorman, J. J. (John Jennings)
Science
A Guide to the Virginia Springs: Giving, in addition to the routes and distances, a description of the springs and also of the natural curiosities of the state
Moorman, J. J. (John Jennings)
Health resorts -- Virginia; Springs -- Virginia; Virginia -- Description and travel
MARSHALL'S PILLAR, or the HAWK'S NEST, as it is more generally called,
is in Fayette County, on New River, within a few yards of the Kanawha
Turnpike. This rocky precipice rises perpendicularly above the river,
to the height of about 1000 feet. The following account of this great
curiosity, given by a foreign traveller, is from Howe's Sketches of
Virginia, to which work we are indebted for most of the matter
respecting the curiosities of the state.
"You leave the road by a little by-path, and after pursuing it for a
short distance, the whole scene suddenly breaks upon you. But how shall
we describe it? The great charm of the whole is connected with the
point of sight, which is the finest imaginable. You come suddenly to a
spot which is called the Hawk's Nest. It projects on the scene, and is
so small as to give standing to only some half dozen persons. It has on
its head an old picturesque pine; and it breaks away at your feet,
abruptly and in perpendicular lines, to a depth of more than 1000 feet.
On this standing, which, by its elevated and detached character,
affects you like the monument, the forest rises above and around you.
Beneath, and before you, is spread a lovely valley. A peaceful river
glides down it, reflecting, like a mirror, all the lights of
heaven--washes the foot of the rocks on which you are standing--and
then winds away into another valley at your right. The trees of the
wood, in all their variety, stand out on the verdant bottoms, with
their heads in the sun, and casting their shadows at their feet; but so
diminished, as to look more like the pictures of the things than the
things themselves. The green hills rise on either hand and all around,
and give completeness and beauty to the scene; and beyond these appears
the gray outline of the more distant mountains, bestowing grandeur to
what was supremely beautiful. It is exquisite. It conveys to you the
idea of perfect solitude. The hand of man, the foot of man, seem never
to have touched that valley. To you, though placed in the midst of it,
it seems altogether inaccessible. You long to stroll along the margin
of those sweet waters, and repose under the shadows of those beautiful
trees; but it looks impossible. It is solitude, but of a most soothing,
not of an appalling character--where sorrow might learn to forget her
griefs, and folly begin to be wise and happy."
From the Hawk's Nest, the route is via Locust Lane, 2 miles; Blue
Sulphur, 40 miles; Lewisburg, 13 miles; and to the White Sulphur, 9
miles.
BERKELEY SPRINGS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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