148 Country Rambles. 



who are supposed to have excavated them for ritual 

 purposes; but, as in other places for such cavities are 

 by no means confined to Greenfield there can be no 

 hesitation in regarding them as pure works of nature. 

 Millstone-grit is, in parts, peculiarly inadhesive. Exposed 

 as this rock has been for untold ages to the beating of 

 tempests, its softer portions, where the cavities are, have 

 been slowly fretted away, and we are asked to recall 

 nothing more than the ancient proverb. Keeping to the 

 road, by degrees the elevation becomes so great that 

 the topmost part is playfully termed the "Isle of Skye." 

 It is hereabouts that the cloudberry, that most artistic 

 of northern fruits, never seen and unable to exist upon 

 lower levels, is for our own neighbourhood, so plentiful. 

 When ripe, so thick is the spread of rosy amber that 

 the spectacle is most bright and pretty, the ground 

 seeming strewed with white-heart cherries. Singular to 

 say, although very nice to human palates, the grouse 

 leave it untouched, turning to the whortleberry and the 

 cranberry. 



As the " Druidical " origin has been popular, and lest 

 there may still be a lingering doubt with some as to 

 the natural origin of the "Pots and Pans," it may be 

 added that upon the high grounds within a few miles of 

 Todmorden there have been reckoned up nearly eight 

 hundred similar cavities, the diameter varying from a few 

 inches to four or five feet. They may be observed indeed 

 in every stage of formation, thus altogether neutralizing 

 the idea of their having been produced by artificial means. 



