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It can be entered only from behind, by a very small oval opening, preceded by a gallery very narrow, and masked at the entrance by enormous rocks, and which could be barricaded by stout beams, hollows for the reception of which are visible. The other is at Soulier-de-Chasteaux on the Couze, an affluent of the Vezere. Here are two caverns excavated by the hand of man.
While the river Couze has in most cases, as at the site of this ancient bridge, been simply able to cut a deep channel through the lava, the lower portion of which is shown to be columnar, the same torrent has in other places, where the valley was contracted to a narrow gorge, had power to remove the entire mass of basaltic rock, causing for a short space a complete breach of continuity in the volcanic current.
Nectaire. This ancient bridge spans the river Couze with two arches, each about fourteen feet wide. These arches spring from the lava of Tartaret, on both banks, showing that a ravine precisely like that now existing had already been excavated by the river through that lava thirteen or fourteen centuries ago.
These Miocene lavas had accumulated to a thickness of nearly 1000 feet before the ravine was cut down to the level of the river Couze, a river which was at length dammed up by the modern cone and the upper part of its course transformed into a lake. Hill of Gergovia.
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