MASSES OF ROCK. 213 



are now found. In Cornwall and Devon, those blocks 

 of stone are numerous ; and, indeed, there is hardly a 

 granitic country in which they are not to be found. 

 In fact, we meet with them in all places where there is 

 a valley or water-course, or slope, from mountains of 

 granite to the sea ; and yet they could not have been 

 brought to the places where they are found by the 

 action of the existing rivers, in a state any thing like 

 their present one. 



The southern part of Finland, which is far from the 

 granitic mountains, and consists of an alternation of 

 pine forests and pools of water, is full of them ; and 

 they have lain so long, that the soil has accumulated 

 thick enough for the growth of trees ; and that which is 

 only a single stone, has all the appearance of a hillock. 

 The pedestal of the celebrated equestrian statue of 

 Peter the Great, at St. Petersburg!!, is formed of one 

 of those masses. It is fifteen hundred tons in weight ; 

 was found as a single detached fragment, and brought 

 from a distance of several miles. Some of the granite 

 quarries at Aberdeen consist of those enormous frag- 

 ments, which are not found in a continuous mass as 

 granite is in the primitive mountains, but in huge sepa- 

 rate masses, among gravel and rubbish, which in the lapse 

 of years has become covered with heath or grass. 



A very singular stone of this description, lies upon a 

 hill, on the south side of the valley of the Earn, near 

 Perth. We forget whether that stone is granite, 

 sienite, or gneiss, we rather think the latter; but at 

 all events, it lies upon the top of a hill, nearly, or fully, 

 twelve hundred feet high, which is surrounded by 

 lower grounds on every side. This hill is green-stone 



