One thing is obvious, the enormous labour of exploring the larger cairns would not have been undertaken unless previous ransackings had yielded valuable results. Some of the cairns must have been huge, and have taken many men several days in clearing out their interiors. About these cairns I shall say a good deal in a chapter apart. 10. Of _camps_ there are two kinds, those constructed of stone and those of earth. I reserve what I have to say about these to a separate chapter. 11. The old stone _bridges_, composed of rude slabs cast across an opening to a pier, also rudely constructed, have been attributed to "the Druids," of course. There is nothing to indicate for these a great antiquity. They belong to the period of pack-horses, and were doubtless often repaired. Those at Dartmeet, and Post Bridge, and Two Bridges--this last has disappeared--were in the line of the pack-horse track, and _not_ in that of the paved way across the moor. The rude bridge at Okery in like manner is in the pack-horse line of way, which is indicated between Princetown and Merrivale Bridge by rude posts of granite set up at intervals. FOOTNOTES: [8] Merrivale Bridge, Har Tor, and Longstone, near Caistor Rock. [9] Querns have been found, but none in prehistoric habitations. CHAPTER V. THE FREAKS Lucubrations of antiquaries in past times--How their imagination led them astray--Rock idols--Logan stones--Who originated the idea that they were oracular--Rock basins--Tolmens--The difference between the modern system of archæological research and that which it has supplanted. It would be amusing were it not melancholy to read the lucubrations of antiquaries of the early part of the nineteenth century on the relics of the past found in such abundance on the moor. Their imagination played a large part in their researches, and references to curious customs in the Bible or in classic writings were drawn in to explain these relics. The antiquaries lacked the faculty of observing accurately, and instead of labouring to accumulate facts, and recording them with precision, employed them as pegs on which to hang their theories, and they whittled at what they did observe, so as to fit what they saw to elucidate these theories. In rambling over the moor they discovered rock idols, logan stones, rock basins, and tolmens, and entered into long dissertations on their employment for worship, oracles, lustrations, and ordeals. [Illustration: BOWERMAN'S NOSE] There are, indeed, to be seen curious piles of rock, but none of these are artificial, and there is not a particle of evidence that any of them received idolatrous worship. Bowerman's Nose is the most remarkable, perhaps. Carrington, the poet of Dartmoor, thus describes it:--