About eight miles from Headquarters, and three miles from the Second Forest, is the most noted tree in the Monument, the Natural Bridge. This sleeping giant lies where it was abandoned as a plaything by the waters that carried it here. Each end is firmly embedded in the sandstone rock, which was formerly the sand at the bottom of the sea. In the process of erosion, which finally carried away all of the material above this log, it ultimately came to lie on the surface of the ground. As the land rises somewhat to the south of it, water gathered there with the big log forming a natural dam. This water tended to soften the sandstone, and after a period of time it forced its way through under the log. Soon this became a free passage for the water, and resulted in the formation of the gorge which the prostrate trunk spans today.

The Natural Bridge log is about four feet in thickness at the largest point in sight. Part of the log is still encrusted with the sandstone which wrapped it about, before wind and rain unshrouded it. The canyon is twenty-five feet deep, and this one hundred and eleven foot log measures forty-four feet between the points at which it rests on the sides of the arroyo.

From the canyon beneath it, cedar, juniper and cottonwood trees have sprung to life and grown up to furnish shade for this comrade of another Age. They must seem mere upstarts to this old veteran!