2-752-641 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Natural Towers', 1872. Rock formation in Augusta County, Virginia, USA: '...the Towers rise straight up from the cultivated field. The illusion is perfect; anyone would mistake them for a ruined work of human hands. No other rocks are visible. From a distance, the ragged peaks of the Towers are transformed almost without an effort of the imagination into crumbling embrasures and machicolations...the resemblance to a feudal ruin, the curtain-wall, with flanking towers, and low, central archway, is exact. It would hardly be a surprise if, issuing from the gateway, a knightly cortege, in glistening helms and hauberks, with pennons flaunting gayly, should file off to the neighboring highway, and proceed to levy toll upon a belated and unprotected wagon-train'. From "Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes...with Illustrations on Steel and Wood by Eminent American Artists" Vol. I, edited by William Cullen Bryant. [D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1872]