case, nor is there any parapet; but from the edge of the road, which runs over the bridge, is a gradual slope to the brink of the chasm, upon which it is somewhat dangerous to venture. This slope is thickly covered with large trees, principally cedars and pines. The opposite side was also well furnished with trees formerly, but all those that grew near the edge of the bridge have been cut down by different people, for the sake of seeing them tumble to the bottom. Before the trees were destroyed in this manner, you might have passed over the bridge without having had any idea of being upon it; for the breadth of it is no less than eighty feet. The road runs nearly in the middle, and is frequented daily by waggons. At the distance of a few yards from the bridge, a narrow path appears, winding along the sides of the fissure, amidst immense rocks and trees, down to the bottom of the bridge. Here the stupendous arch appears in all its glory, and seems to touch the very skies. To behold it without rapture, indeed, is impossible; and the more critically it is examined, the more beautiful and the more surprising does it appear. The height of the bridge to the top of the parapet is two hundred and thirteen feet by admeasurement with a line, the thickness of the arch forty feet, the span of the arch at top ninety feet, and the distance between the abutments at bottom fifty feet. The abutments consist of a solid mass of limestone on either side, and, together with the arch, seem as if they had been chiseled out by the hand of art. A small stream, called Cedar Creek, running at the bottom of the fissure, over bed of rocks, adds much to the beauty of the scene. The fissure takes a very sudden turn just above the bridge, according to the course of the stream, so that when you stand below, and look under the arch, the view is intercepted at the distance of about fifty yards from the bridge. Mr. Jefferson’s statement, in his Notes, that the fissure continues strait, terminating with a pleasing view of the North Mountains, is quite erroneous. The sides of the chasm are thickly covered in every part with trees, excepting where the huge rocks of limestone appear. [Sidenote: MADDISON’S CAVE.] Besides this view from below, the bridge is seen to very great advantage from a pinnacle of rocks, about fifty feet below the top of the fissure; for here not only the arch is seen in all its beauty, but the spectator is impressed in the most forcible manner with ideas of its grandeur, from being enabled at the same time to look down into the profound gulph over which it passes.