2-752-638 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Anvil Cliff', 1872. Rock formation on the New River, Virginia, USA: '...the rugged, riven, and weird Anvil Cliff lifts its awful but not repulsive front....the height of which, ascertained by triangulation, is stated to be two hundred and ninety-six feet - an over-estimate, probably. The cliffs are elevated in immense laminae, and in a plane generally oblique to the stream - their color sombre gray...their summits black and riven, capped by twisted and storm-stained cedars. Mighty forest-trees are inserted between the crags...the general aspect of the scene is savage and Dantesque'. 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]