«The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth had been erected in time; that the mountains were formed first; that the rivers began to flow afterwards; that in this place particularly they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that, continuing to rise, they have at length broken over this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of this disrupture and avulsion from their beds, by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which nature has given to the picture is of a different character. It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful as that is wild and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach, and partake of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that way too the road happens actually to lead. You cross the Potomac above the junction, pass along its side through the base of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within about twenty miles reach of Frederick town, and the fine country around it. This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the natural bridge, are people who have passed their lives within half a dozen of miles, and have never been to survey these monuments of a war between the rivers and mountains, which must have shaken the earth itself to its center.» To this description of the passage of the Potomac may be added what Mr Jefferson, in the appendix, has given from his friend Mr Thomson, secretary of Congress.