Browsing named entities in Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing). You can also browse the collection for Towers or search for Towers in all documents.

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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Bad lands, the. (search)
overed this portion of our continent, when the comparatively soft materials which compose the present surface were deposited. As these lakes drained off, after the subsidence of the plains farther east, resulting in the formation of the Missouri Valley, the original lake beds were worn into canyons that wind in every conceivable direction. Here and there abrupt, almost perpendicular portions of the ancient beds remain in all imaginable forms, some resembling the ruins of abandoned cities. Towers, spires, cathedrals, obelisks, pyramids, and monuments of various shapes appear on every side, as far as the eye can range. Dr. Hayden, the earliest explorer of this region, said: Not unfrequently the rising or setting sun will light up these grand old ruins with a wild, strange beauty, reminding one of a city illuminated in the night, as seen from some high point. The harder layers project from the sides of the canyons with such regularity that they appear like seats of some vest weird am