2-752-644 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Rainbow Arch', 1872. Rock formation on the James River, Virginia, USA: 'The stratification here is most rare and strange, describing the arc of a circle, and the contour of the opposing faces on the two sides of the river being so perfectly true that a projecting rock on the one side has, exactly opposite, the recess from which it was apparently torn. Speculation as to the origin of this singular formation must be left to the geologists. The arch rises two hundred feet above the level of the stream, and is known as the Rainbow Arch. The whole scene is lovely. Graceful trees drooping over the clear water, an abandoned furnace, and the ruined piers of a long-swept-away bridge, add very much to the natural picturesqueness of the place'. 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]