Showing posts with label Virginia. Show all posts
Luray Caverns
is a large, celebrated commercial cave
just west of Luray, Virginia, USA, which has drawn many visitors since its
discovery in 1878. Luray Caverns does not date beyond the Tertiary period,
though carved from the Silurian limestone. At some period, niches and already
formed chambers were completely filled with water, highly charged with acid,
which then slowly began to eat away at much of the softer material composing
much of the walls. Source
Natural Bridge in Rockbridge County, Virginia, is a geological formation in which Cedar Creek (a small tributary of the James River) has carved out a gorge in the mountainous limestone terrain, forming a natural arch 215 ft high with a span of 90 ft. It consists of horizontal limestone strata, and is the remains of the roof of a cave or tunnel through which the creek once flowed. Natural Bridge has been designated a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. The Natural Bridge was a sacred site of the Native American Monacan tribe, who believed it to be the site of a major victory over pursuing Powhatans centuries before the arrival of whites in Virginia. In March of 1742, a frontiersman named John Howard, along with his son and others, was commissioned by Governor Gooch to explore the southwest of Virginia as far as the Mississippi River. The party followed Cedar Creek through the Natural Bridge, then floated in buffalo-skin boats down the New, Coal, Kanawha, and Ohio Rivers to the Mississippi. Source
