The presidents of the United States are well represented in nature with a large number of natural stone likenesses. Unlike the man-made memorials of Mount Rushmore, these rocky images were sculpted by nature alone. What does it mean that we find these famous figures of human society echoed in the mountains and valleys of America? Do they provide a natural birthright for our current political system, as Mother Nature's endorsement of Manifest Destiny? This is the theme of Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous short story, "The Great Stone Face": that the gentle spirit of the landscape is guiding the progress of the citizens living within it. Did these presidential images exist in nature long before the people who they resemble were even born?

Perhaps these recognized images are simply a relic of whichever famous individual was popular in the public imagination at the time they were discovered. Some rock formations have had the bad luck to take the form of celebrities we no longer remember, such as "Harry Lauder" in Garden of the Gods in Colorado.

Abraham Lincoln's profile is certainly memorable and distinctive enough to be recognized in cartoonish form at several locations:

But it is George Washington who takes the lead in revealing himself from the earth far and wide across the U.S., and sometimes even across the Atlantic. Perhaps only a few of these profiles are convincing resemblances of the first president with his square jaw and sloping nose, but it is comforting to think that Washington still watches over our country in some form.

Of the modern presidents, only a few have been spotted out in the natural world. A lava rock outcrop resembling John F. Kennedy can be seen up the Iao valley on Maui.

Despite Hawthorne's ideas, perhaps nature's noble creations are no great endorsement of immortal greatness and destiny. On Mount Lemmon near Tucson is this profile which is here labelled "Goosehead Rock" but which has also been identified as an image of President Richard M. Nixon.