188 REPORT — 1861. 



di-awings of several -whicli he said must have been thus formed. Two especially, 

 of vast size, he thought were boulders di'opped from ice-floes, which in falling upon 

 others broke them, and remained ever since secm-ely supported upon these rude 

 props. They would then become ready-made and secm'e tombs, and would be con- 

 tinually used for such a pm-pose from the remotest ages. 



On this supposition he thought that the relics of various and successive races, 

 which are occasionally foimd in such Crondeachs, could be easily accoimted for. 

 He observed that it was not sui-prising that these large blocks of stone, so mysteri- 

 ously disposed, should have produced a feeling of awe and veneration, and that they 

 shoiUd even come to be regarded as objects of superstitious fear or idtimately of 

 religious worship, such as that practised by the Druids. He said that he did not 

 mean to assert that all Cromleachs were so formed ; on the contraiy, he thought 

 that the gi-eater mmiber, especially of the smaller ones, were evidently ai-tificial. 

 All he meant to contend for was, that the original Cronileach was of natm-al or 

 accidental fonnation, and used as a grave for coimtless ages before its artificial imi- 

 tation, which idtimately assumed the fonn of a rude tomb. He considered that the 

 universal distribution of the Cronileach shoidd not be looked upon as a conclusive 

 proof of an identity of origin of the various races of man, but rather as an indica- 

 tion of an identity of the instinctive resources of the human intellect under similar 

 circumstances. He instanced the curious similarity-, almost amoimtiug to identity, 

 of two stone hatchets in the Museum at Leeds, one of which was brought from 

 Otaheite, and the other found, with ancient British relics, in a cave near Settle. 

 He thought that when the materials of a Cromleach were light and easily dis- 

 placed, the instinctive resom-ce imder such circumstances would be to conceal it 

 under a mound of earth or stones, as the locality could aflbrd. This he believed 

 to be the ti-ue histoi-y of the original timiulus or caini, which were the probable 

 prototypes of those stupendous p;sTamidal structures of the more civilized 

 Egj'ptians. He considered this a more natural explanation of those universal 

 structures than the dreamy visions of certain ethnologists, who will only see in 

 them the Aestiges or landmarks of improbable himian migi'ations, of which they 

 offer us no more satisfactoiy evidence than the ingenious specidations of philolo- 

 gists, who find in language such a plastic material that they can moidd it into any 

 form to suit their own preconceived theories. 



Amongst the other megalithic wonders, the erection of which has been popularly 

 ascribed to supernatural agency, he remarked that none was more striking than the 

 /* Rocking-stone." He quoted a passage from Wilson's 'Prehistoric Annals of 

 Scotland, in which the writer gi-aphically describes the engineering science and 

 mechanical skill evinced in their erection. He thought that the theoiy advanced 

 by him for the formation of the primitive Cromleach woidd easily remote all these 

 mechanical difiicidties. He obseiTed that if the glacial flood, of which we have 

 everywhere such manifest indications, had borne away upon its enormous ice-rafts 

 vast blocks of stone, torn from the abraded sides of the valleys as they di-ifted 

 thi-ough them, these masses of rock must have been all deposited on the bottom of 

 this icy sea, on its increase of temperatm-e and subsidence. Now, many of these 

 floating boulders must, he thought, have fallen upon others, and rested upon the 

 broken fragments, as in the instance of the Cromleach. He considered that it was 

 not imreasonable to suppose that occasionallj' others may have been deposited 

 quietly upon the veiy pivot of theu* centi'es of gravity, where they woidd remain 

 curiously balanced, on the retreat of the waters. They woidd there natiu-ally be- 

 come objects of wonder and awe to the savage human creatures who first beheld 

 them, and to all succeeding generations. He stated that the Phoenicians and Greeks 

 assigned to the Eocking-stone divine power, and that the priests everywhere 

 availed themselves of this superstitious fear. The author exhibited a sketch of the 

 famous Logan Stone of Cornwall, to show how impossible it was to look upon it as 

 the work of human hands. He described another sort of Rocking-stone, which he 

 thought to have been formed by the gradual wearing of the narrow base of the 

 overlj-ing stone. Li Ulustration of this latter idea, he exhibited a sketch of an 

 " erratic block " near Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, •which is figured in 

 Professor PhiUips's interesting work on that county. He thought that it was not 

 difficult to foresee that, in the lapse of time not very remote, the small base upon 

 which this rock now rests secm^ely may be scaled off by rain and frost, until 



