<P> The Garden of the Gods Wilderness is a 3,318 - acre (13.43 km) parcel of land listed as a Wilderness Area of the United States . It is located within the Shawnee National Forest in Hardin, Pope, Saline, and Gallatin counties in the U.S. state of Illinois . The nearest town of any size is Equality . </P> <P> During the Carboniferous period (circa 300 million years before the present), local geological conditions laid down a thick bed of gray sandstone in what is now southern Illinois . This bed of sandstone was later uplifted, and the Garden of the Gods is part of an uplifted sandstone plateau . Unlike much of Illinois, this plateau was never covered by glaciers; the furthest advance of ice sheets during the Illinoian glaciation stopped just north of Garden of the Gods . </P>

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