366 A Winter in Cornwall. [Sess. 
coming to drink or get bathed in the waters, accompanied 
by some priestly mummery to add celebrity to the 
occasion. 
Mention has been made of such freaks of nature as the 
Cheesewring, Helmen Tor, Roche Rocks, &c., and I am fain to 
confess myself somewhat at a loss how to describe them so as 
to bring their general appearance to the mind’s eye of those 
who have not witnessed such strange vagaries. Conceive to 
yourselves huge, unchiselled, shapeless masses of granite 
shooting out of the level, and suggesting the idea that they 
had been thrown out of the bowels of the earth during some 
extraordinary convulsion of nature, piled one on top of 
another, small blocks supporting others twenty times their 
size and weight to a bewildering extent. Many of these 
stones are of an enormous size, weighing several tons, and the 
question is, How did they get into their present position? To 
look at them, one would think a good push would be sufficient 
to knock the larger blocks off the smaller ; but in reality, though 
top-heavy to appearance, they are so firmly fixed that nothing 
less than dynamite or a regiment of soldiers would move 
them, and even then the latter would have their work cut out 
for them. The only theory I have ever heard advanced that 
savours of feasibility is, that after the great upheaval centuries 
of rain and tempest washed away the surrounding soil and left 
the lumps just as they were when underground. This may be 
right or it may be wrong, but the idea need not be pursued 
further. The group in the Carradon district, of which the 
famous Cheesewring (Plate XXXVII.) forms a small part, is 
perhaps the finest example, and to see this to perfection a wild, 
wet, misty day is the best, although possibly not the most com- 
fortable. To observe the “haar” driving in clouds across 
the muir, every now and then being cleared off by a gust of 
wind so as to reveal the enormous stones standing out in relief 
against the sky, has a solemn and weird effect, and gives a 
much better notion of their magnitude than can be obtained 
through the medium of bright sunshine. It can quite easily 
be imagined that, among piled-up masses such as these, stones 
may be found poised in such positions as to be capable of 
being slightly moved by an exercise of more or less strength. 
These are known as “ Logans” or rocking-stones, and many 
