A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
When a hard bed of granite lies on one that is very soft, the latter
becomes disintegrated and eaten completely away. The hard bed is
left either balanced on one point or more, or else has its centre
of gravity so placed as to precipitate it from its position. Plenty
of rocks may be seen in all these conditions. If it should chance
that a rock remains poised on one point, then possibly a little
pressure at one end of the slab will set it in motion. This, then,
is known as a logan, or rocking stone, which antiquaries of old
pronounced to have been employed by the Druids as oracles, or for
purpose of divination. All this was bred out of the phantasy of the
antiquaries. There is absolutely not a particle of evidence to show
that they were supposed to be mysterious, or were employed in any
rites, and it is also absolutely certain that they were formed by
the hand of Nature alone.
There are many logan rocks on Dartmoor. One is on Black Tor, near
Princetown. It is instructive, as it not only shows the process of
weathering which made it what it is, but it has on top of it a rock
basin that decants by a lip over the edge of the stone when the
latter is made to vibrate.
The "Nutcracker" stone near Amicombe Hill above the West Ockment
rolls in a high wind like a boat that is anchored. There were two
very fine logans on Staple Tor above Merivale Bridge, but quarrymen
wantonly destroyed the whole of one of the steeples, together with
the finest logan on Dartmoor that was on it. The other remains. On
Rippon Tor is one, another in Lustleigh Cleave.
The felspar dissolved by the rain was carried away, and has been
deposited in many places, filling up an ancient lake-bed and forming
Bovey Heathfield, coating plains and hills with a deposit white
as snow; this is kaolin, and is worked as china clay at Lee Moor
and in Shaugh. The water flowing from the works is like milk, and,
curiously enough, cows relish it.
Having got rid of the rock basins and logan stones as
pseudo-antiques, we will now address ourselves to those which are
genuine.
[Illustration: RIPPON TOR, LOGAN STONE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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