of the spectator in a degree which it would be difficult to express. The "Battle of Princeton," a scene of a like character, and painted in a similar spirit by the same accomplished and faithful hand, exhibits the fall of General Mercer, in full view of the venerable institution of learning, Nassau hall, around and even within which lay the scene of that day's sanguinary struggle. A British grenadier, in the brilliant dress of his corps, is in the act of thrusting his bayonet into the body of the gallant officer, but is restrained by a timely hand. Here, also, the mingling of soldiers of the two armies, in various attitudes and all in energetic action, produces a similar excitement of the mind; while the consciousness that most of the principal personages are represented by true portraits, adds inestimable value to this, no less than to the other pictures of the Trumbull series. GEORGETOWN. This is a town and port of entry of considerable trade, situated west of Washington, from which it is separated by Rock creek, over which are two bridges, affording a convenient connexion between the two cities, the centres of which are about two miles apart. The ground on which the town stands is irregular, and rises to a considerable height above the Potomac, on which the city fronts. The scenery around is varied and pleasant, and on the west stand the picturesque and rocky hills, which here begin to change the aspect of the river's banks. The falls are soon discovered, by following up the narrow gorge through which the stream winds, and through which proceeds the Potomac canal, the largest work of the kind in Virginia, or in any of the southern states. The Cannon Foundry is situated in a secluded valley of these hills, and on the summit of them stands The Roman Catholic College.-There are two large buildings belonging to it, and it has a president, fourteen professors, about one hundred and forty students, and twenty-five thousand volumes in its library. The commencement is held in July. The Nunnery, or convent of the Visitation, is at a short distance from the college. It was founded in 1798, and contains sixty or seventy nuns, some of whom are employed in the female school attached to the institution. Chain-Bridge across the Potomac.— Two miles above Georgetown, in the midst of the wild and romantic scenery which there marks the borders of the stream, a light bridge, constructed of wire, was thrown across the channel, a few years ago. Two heavy abutments of stone were built on the banks, narrowing the bed of the stream as far as seemed judicious, and at their extremities were raised columns strong enough to sustain the iron supporters. Depending from the latter, strong wires were extended down to the horizontal mass of woven wire, which formed the main part of the bridge, and on which the floor was laid; and the whole fabric, when completed, presented the neat and light appearance of the drawing. This spot is ten miles below the Great falls of the Potomac, where the stream is pressed through a passage only one hundred yards in width, and falls thirty or forty feet into a rocky basin. Passing on nearly four miles, it reaches the head of the Little falls, or rapids, the descent of which is much more gradual, over broken rocks and a channel rather rapidly descending all the way to tidewater: about thirty-five feet in all. Several wooden bridges had been erected across the Potomac, in this part of its course, which had been torn away by the ice or the current in the violent annual floods; and the wire bridge was adopted with the expectation that it would prove more durable. The nature of the valley through which the Potomac flows, renders the rising of the water, at certain seasons, remarkably great and sudden; and the force of the current at this place, especially when loaded with floating ice, is quite irresistible. Piers can not be expected to stand long in the bed of the river, however solid and firm ; and the only safe alternative was to extend a light bridge from shore to shore, without venturing to seek support in the middle. more southern parts, by the Tennessee | been procured on the Great Kenhawa, and salt extensively manufactured. river. There is a remarkable spot some distance southwest of the centre of the state, where some of the highest sources of several of the principal rivers of the state rise within a short distance, though flowing in different directions: James river, which empties near the southern extremity of Chesapeake bay; Tennessee river, which flows southwest and then west through the state of Tennessee; and the Kenhawa, running into the Ohio. The Natural Bridge over Cedar creek, twelve miles southwest of Lexington, is esteemed one of the most extraordinary natural curiosities in the world. The following is Mr. Jefferson's description, in his Notes on Virginia :— "It is on the ascent of a hill which seems to have been cloven through its length by some great convulsion. The fissure, just by the bridge, is by some admeasurements two hundred and seventy feet deep, by others only two hundred and five. It is about forty-five feet wide at the bottom, and ninety feet at the top: this, of course, determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water; its breadth in the middle is about sixty feet, but more at the ends; and the thickness of the mass, at the summit of the arch, is about forty feet. A part of this thickness is constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees; the residue, with the hill on both sides, is one solid rock of limestone. The arch approaches the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipse, which would be the chord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have resolution to walk to them and look over into the abyss: you involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute gave me a violent head-acle. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme; it is, impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing, as it were, up to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight, for a considerable distance above and be Though the zones of Virginia are not very distinctly marked, each part has its appropriate character. The oceanic section of Virginia is its tropical climate. Latitude, exposure, and depressed level, all combine to give the Chesapeake counties a more elevated temperature than is found in the interior. This difference is seen on vegetation. In the lower counties cotton may be cultivated successfully, while the uncertainty of grain and meadow-grasses evinces a southern summer. The middle, in all the Atlantic states south from Pennsylvania, we find to be the Arcadia of the state. Middle Virginia is, however, blended with the mountainous, the former containing the whole or great part of the valley counties, Berkley, Jefferson, Frederick, Shenandoah, Rockingham, Augusta, Rockbridge, Botetourt, Montgomery, Wythe, and Washington. The real, mountain section lies northwest from the middle, and extends to the Ohio. The extreme western part is, indeed, composed of a congeries of hills with alluvial bottoms, but the actual mountain ridges approach so near Ohio river, and the hills are in themselves so generally abrupt and lofty, as to give an alpine appearance to the country. Taken as a whole, central Virginia has the best soil, though in the mountainous part there is much that is excellent. With the exception of the southeastern counties, grain and orchard fruits are highly congenial to Virginia, and their various products are the nat-low the bridge, opens a short but very ural, actual, and we may safely say the pleasing view of the North mountain on permanent, staples of the state. Of one side, and Blue ridge on the other, metals, iron ore is abundant in the cen- at the distance, each of them, of about tral and western sections. Brine has five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rockbridge, to which it has given his own not very easy task, of getting name, and affords a public and commo- his charge along. With all my attendious passage over a valley which can tion, I could see no precipice, and was not be crossed elsewhere for a consider- concluding to follow the road without able distance. The stream passing un- any more vagaries, when Mr. L., who der it is called Cedar creek; it is a was a little in advance, waved his whip water of James river, and sufficient in as he stood beside his horse, and said: the driest seasons to turn a gristmill,Here is the bridge!' I then perceived though its fountain is not more than two miles above." The description of Jefferson first attracted the attention of travellers to this remarkable spot. Of recent descriptions, the best is that by Miss Martineau, which is truly characteristic and interesting, and is as follows: "At a mile from the bridge, the road turns off through a wood. While the stage rolled and jolted along the extremely bad road, Mr. L. and I went prying about the whole area of the wood, poking our horses' noses into every thicket, and between any two pieces of rock, that we might be sure not to miss our object; the driver smiling after us, whenever he could spare attention from I that we were nearly over it, the piled rocks on either hand forming a barrier, which prevents a careless eye from perceiving the ravine which it spans. turned to the side of the road, and rose in my stirrup to look over, but I found it would not do. I went on to the inn, deposited my horse, and returned on foot to the bridge. "With all my efforts, I could not look down steadily into what seemed the bottomless abyss of foliage and shadow. From every point of the bridge I tried, and all in vain. I was heated and extremely hungry, and much vexed at my own weakness. The only way was to go down and look up; though where the bottom could be was past my imagining, e view from the top seeming to be of liage below foliage for ever. "The way to the glen is through a ld opposite the inn, and down a steep, ugh, rocky path, which leads under e bridge, and a few yards beyond it. think the finest view of all is from this ath, just before reaching the bridge. he irregular rock, spanning a chasm f one hundred and sixty feet in height, nd from sixty to ninety in width, is xquisitely tinted with every shade of ray and brown; while trees encroach rom the sides, and overhang from the op, between which and the arch there s an additional depth of fifty-six feet. it was now early in July; the trees were n their brightest and thickest foliage; and the tall beeches under the arch contrasted their verdure with the gray rock. and received the gilding of the sunshine, as it slanted into the ravine, glittering in the drip from the arch, and in the splashing and tumbling waters of Cedar creek, which ran by our feet. Swallows were flying about under the arch. What others of their tribe can boast of such a home? "We crossed and recrossed the creek on stepping-stones, searching out every spot to which any tradition belonged. Under the arch, thirty feet from the water, the lower part of the letters G. W. may be seen, carved in the rock. When Washington was a young man he climbed up hither, to leave this record of his visit. There are other inscriptions of the same kind; and above them a board, on which are painted the names of two persons, who have thought it worth while thus to immortalize their feat of climbing highest. But their glory was but transient, after all. They have been outstripped by a traveller, whose achievement will probably never be rivalled; for he would not have accomplished it if he could, by any means, have declined the task. Never was a wonderful deed more involuntarily performed. There is no disparagement to the gentleman in saying this: it is only absolving him from the charge of foolhardiness. the ambition appropriate to the place, of writing his name highest, climbed the rock opposite to the part selected by Washington, and carved his initials. Others have perhaps seen what Mr. Blacklock had overlooked-that it was a place easy to ascend, but from which it is impossible to come down. He was forty feet or more from the path; his footing was precarions; he was weary with holding on while carving his name; and his head began to swim when he saw the impossibility of getting down again. He called to his companions that his only chance was to climb up upon the bridge, without hesitation or delay. They saw this, and with anguish agreed between themselves that the chance was a very bare one. They cheered him, and advised him to look neither up nor down. On he went, slanting upward from under the arch, creeping round a projection, on which no foothold is visible from below, and then disappearing in a recess filled up with foliage. Long and long they waited, watching for motion, and listening for crashing among the trees. He must have been now one hundred and fifty feet above them. At length their eyes were so strained that they could see no more, and they had almost lost all hope. There was little doubt that he had fallen while behind the trees, where his body would never be found. They went up to try the chance of looking for him from above. They found him lying insensible on the bridge. He could just remember reaching the top, when he immediately fainted." Passage through the Blue Ridge.— The following interesting description is in Jefferson's Notes on Virginia: "The passage of the Potomac through the Blue ridge is one of the most stupendous scenes. You stand on a very high point of land; on your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent; on your left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also; in the moment of their junction, they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. first glance of this scene hurries our senses The |