Sutton, Massachusetts, USA

Purgatory, Sutton, Mass., 1906

Legend says that the chasm was created by the devil in response to an Algonquin Indian woman killing a white colonial settler.

Historians say that the legend actually served a religious purpose in the colonists’ efforts to Christianize Native Americans.

Geologists believe that a mile-high glacier let loose a gush of dammed-up water some 14,000 years ago, leaving the walls intact but carving out the 70-foot-deep chasm.

newengland.com