110 Mr. Moore's Remarks on the Origin of Rock-basins. 



rious sources, without sufficient examination into their value 

 and authenticity. Not considering him therefore a guide that 

 could be always followed with safety, I have referred to other 

 and higher authorities. At the same time I am far from think- 

 ing this writer to be deserving of contempt. His learning 

 and the general extent of his researches entitle his opinions 

 to attention. 1 must also be permitted to add, that I have 

 not rested the proof of the existence of Druidism in the West 

 of England on the existence of rock-basins, or on any other 

 British remains in this district, but on the consideration, that 

 as this superstition constituted the religion of the ancient in- 

 habitants of this island, it was matter of course that it pre- 

 vailed also in the West, and retained its hold longer there 

 than elsewhere in England, as this was the last quarter from 

 which the Britons were driven, or in which they were reduced 

 to subjection. The British remains in Devonshire and Corn- 

 wall may, or may not, be connected with this ancient supersti- 

 tion ; but the probability appears evidently to be that they 

 were. 



After observing justly (" Devon," p. 281) that every natural 

 phenomenon and production that was not understood, was in 

 early times generally attributed to supernatural agency, Mr. B. 

 proceeds to remark, that " in modern times, natural phaeno- 

 mena of the same description, which the existing state of sci- 

 ence has not afforded the means of explaining, have been 

 regarded as the works of ancient nations, and, in this country 

 especially, as those of the Druids, or at least of the people 

 whose operations were instigated or directed by them." And 

 no doubt much error has arisen from this source : but it may 

 be well to recollect that it is possible to run into the op- 

 posite extreme, and in the eagerness to stand as far aloof as 

 possible from the prejudices of ignorance and folly, credulity 

 may still be discovered in ascribing to the agency of nature 

 the results of human art and industry. In our efforts to 

 assign natural causes for extraordinary productions, we must 

 be stopped somewhere by reason and common sense, or in the 

 future and accelerated progress of the sciences we shall doubt- 

 less at length find out, not only that the rock-basins, but 

 the cromlechs, and what are vulgarly supposed to be Druidi- 

 cal circles, as Stonehenge for instance, are positively natural 

 phsenomena. In these latter productions I discover marks of 

 human agency and design, and therefore ascribe them to these 

 causes; and for similar reasons I am still inclined to believe 

 that rock-basins are artificial. 

 Islington, Jan. 3, 1831. THOMAS MooilE. 



XX. An 



