40 THE FOREST OF DARTMOOR. 



deep ; underneath which lies a solid mass of granite, occasionally 

 relieved by trap (a volcanic rock), and traversed by veins of tin, 

 copper, and manganese.* 



Nearly in the centre of this dismal wilderness lies an immense 

 morass, whose surface is in many places incapable of supporting the 

 lightest animal, and whose inexhaustible reservoirs supply the foun- 

 tains of many a river and stream the Dart, the Teign, the Taw, the 

 Tavy all clear as crystal in the summer months, but after heavy 

 rains running redly through the " stony vales." The roaring of 

 these torrents, when angry and swollen, is sublime to a degree incon- 

 ceivable by those who have never heard the wild impressive music of 

 untamed Nature. 



The tors are remarkable for their quaint fantastic outlines, which, 

 like the clouds, suggest all manner of strange similitudes to dragons, 

 and griffins, and hoary ruins, and even to human forms of gigantic 

 size, apparently confronting the traveller as the lords and natural 

 denizens of the rugged waste. The principal summits are Yes Tor, 

 Cawsand Beacon, Fur Tor, Lynx Tor, Rough Tor, Holne Ridge, Brent 

 Tor, Rippen Tor, Hound Tor, Sheep's Tor, Crockern Tor, and Great Mis 

 Tor. Not only must their variety of form delight the artist, but his 

 eye rests well pleased on their manifold changes of colour ; purple, 

 and green, and gray, and blue now softened by a delicate vaporous 

 shadow, now glowing with intense fulness in the sun's unclouded light. 



Dartmoor is traditionally reputed to have been anciently clothed 

 with forest. The sole relic now existing is the lonely Wistman's 

 Wood, which occupies a sombre valley, bounded on the one side by 

 Crockern Tor, on the other by Little and Great Bairdown ; the slopes 

 being strewn with gray blocks of granite in "admired disorder," as 

 if the Titans had been at their cumbrous play. Starting from this 

 chaos of rocks, appears a wood or grove of dwarf weird-looking oaks, 

 interspersed with the mountain-ash, and everywhere festooned about 

 and garlanded with ferns and parasitical plants. None of these trees 



* Rev. S. Rowe, "Perambulation of the Ancient Forest of Dartmoor" (ed. by Dr. E. 

 Moore; London, 1856). 



