Mantel Rock, or Natural Bridge, in Livingston County, in picturesqueness rivals the far-famed Natural Bridge of Virginia. This rock, resting against the hillside, is eight and three fourths feet thick and twenty feet wide; its arch spans two hundred and twenty feet. One of the paintings that attracted most attention in the Kentucky building at the St. Louis World's Fair was the artistic reproduction of this picturesque place by Mrs. Georgia McGrew Edwards.
In Lyon County, near Eddyville, 1848, several men explored a cavern for half a mile, where a large stream of water, an underground river, was found to be flowing.
About three miles from Benton, in Marshall County, on a high hill, there is a lake about sixty yards in diameter, whose depth is unknown; its waters neither rise nor fall, but stand about fifty feet above the bed of the creek below.
In Meade County, between Salt River and Sinking Creek, are several knobs and groves that the pioneers used as points of observation from which to detect the movements of the Indian parties just after they crossed to the south side of the Ohio River.
Bardstown, in Nelson County, is built on an elevation under which is a natural tunnel, several feet in diameter, of circular form, reaching from the eastern to the western extremity of the eminence.
Owen County has several objects of interest, among them being Point of Rocks, about seventy-five feet high, overhanging Deep Hole, whose depth has never been ascertained.
In Rockcastle County, Bee Cliff rears its summit three hundred and fifty-five feet above the river; there are also a number of saltpeter caves where large quantities of saltpeter were manufactured during the War of 1812. The largest, called Great Saltpeter Cave, with its many rooms, some of which cover an area of several acres, with its subterranean river and weird grandeur, is a rival in all respects but size to the noted Mammoth Cave of Edmonson County. The Fall Cliffs, at some points three hundred feet in height, are unsurpassed in grandeur.
Among the places of interest in Union County there is, standing upon level bottom land, a rock two feet thick, twenty feet wide, and fifty feet high which, on account of its spur resembling the horn of an anvil, is called Anvil Rock. In the same county a large flat rock, deeply indented with impressions of the human foot of various sizes as well as the distinct footprints of the dog is found.
In Warren County, Wolf Sink, one hundred and fifty feet wide by three hundred feet long and in depth varying from twenty feet on the south side to one hundred and fifty feet on the north side, is an interesting place.
The Cumberland River in its passage through Whitley County has a perpendicular fall of more than sixty feet, forming Cumberland Falls, a picturesque cascade, the roar of which can be heard sometimes for more than twelve miles both above and below the cataract. Behind the sheet of falling water one can pass nearly across the river bed.