| THE AIR OF THE LURAY CAVERNS. |
By GUY L. HUNNER, M.D.,
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL.
AT Luray, Page County, Virginia, is located a health resort which represents an idea unique in hospital or sanitarium construction. The dwellers in Limair may keep their doors and windows closed summer and winter, and still breathe air as pure as that of the mountain side.
My acquaintance with this institution began in the fall of 1901, when making a vacation drive through the Shenandoah country. After a ramble through the Luray Caverns, our party was shown through the sanitarium and treated to the novel experience of living in the caverns' air, while enjoying a full measure of light and sunshine.
Limair has an elevation of about one thousand feet above the sea level. It stands on a hill about two hundred feet above the neighboring water courses, and commands a magnificent view of the Page Valley with the enclosing mountain ranges—the Blue Ridge to the east and Massanutten range to the west. These mountains are from three thousand to four thousand feet high, and as seen from the elevation in the center of the valley they present a panorama of never-failing interest. The Page Valley is said to enjoy more sunshine than can be elsewhere found in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. A pine forest of about one hundred and forty acres which covers the Luray Caverns hill affords beautiful walks and drives, and is not the least of the attractive features of the place, when considered as a health resort.
Mr. T. C, Northcott, builder and proprietor of Limair, is a heating and ventilating engineer of twenty years' experience, and he has devoted many years to the problem of establishing an institution that would combine the advantages of sunlight and beautiful surroundings with an air supply at once voluminous and pure. After investigating the caves of New York, Ohio and Virginia he secured building and park privileges over the Luray Caverns as a site comprising the greatest number of healthful and attractive features. A reference to the photographs (Figs. 2 and 3) will give an idea of how well the site has been chosen. The drawing (Fig. 1) explains the methods of air supply and ventilation, but only a visit to the institution will demonstrate how completely the theories of the engineer are being worked out in practical results.
