The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and artAbbott, John Loraine
Science
The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and art
Abbott, John Loraine
Curiosities and wonders
The entrance is partly artificial, to afford a greater facility to the
visitor, who has to descend fifty-four steps. The cavern now opens on
him in solitary grandeur. Huge masses of stone are piled on each other
with a tremendous kind of carelessness, evidently produced by some
violent concussion, though at an unknown period. He is conducted to a
long and wide passage, the roof of which has all the regularity of a
finished ceiling, and is bespangled by spars of various descriptions.
From above, from beneath, and from the sides, the rays of the lights are
reflected in every direction. In an adjacent compartment, rocks are
heaped on rocks in terrible array, and assume a threatening aspect. Next
is an apartment decorated with what, in the language of the country, is
called the snow-fossil, a petrifaction which, both in figure and color,
resembles snow, as it is drifted by the winter storm into the cavities
of a rock. Near the extremity of the cavern are to be seen fishes
petrified and fixed in the several strata which form the surrounding
recess. One of these has its back jutting out of the side of the earth,
as if it had been petrified in the act of swimming. In another branch of
the cavern a well has been found of a considerable depth.
REYNARD’S HOLE.
After having proceeded about a mile in Dove dale, the romantic and
sublime beauties of which will be hereafter noticed, by a route
constantly diversified by new fantastic forms, and uncouth combinations
of rock, the visitor is led to a mass of mural rock, bearing the above
name, and perforated by nature into a grand arch, nearly approaching to
the shape of the sharply pointed Gothic style of architecture, about
forty-five feet in hight, and in width twenty. Having passed through
this arch, a steep ascent leads to a natural cavern, called Reynard’s
Hall, forty-five feet in length, fifteen in breadth, and in hight
thirty. From the mouth of this cavern the scenery is singular, beautiful
and impressive. The face of the rock which contains the arch, rises
immediately in front, and would effectually prevent the eye from ranging
beyond its mighty barrier, did not its center open into the
above-mentioned arch, through which is seen a small part of the opposite
side of the dale, consisting of a mass of gloomy wood, from the shade of
which a huge detached rock, solitary, cragged, and pointed, starts out
to a great hight, and forms an object truly sublime. This rock, which
has received the name of Dove Dale Church, is pleasingly contrasted by
the little pastoral river, Dove, and by its verdant turfy banks. A
narrow opening at the extremity of the cavern is supposed to lead to
other similar cavities in the rock; and on the left is a cavern, about
forty feet in length, in breadth fourteen, and in hight twenty-six,
called Reynard’s Kitchen, from the interior of which a pleasing view is
presented of the upper part of the dale, its river and rocks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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