186 RECENT ARCHiEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN CORNWALL. 



(I). ROCK MARKINGS. 



Marks artificially produced, some of them being evidently 

 archaic, have been found upon the rocks of Cornwall. Their age 

 is unknown. 



Before describing them I would observe that it was formerly 

 the custom with antiquaries to regard as tbe work of man much 

 that had been effected by inanimate nature.* 



It was so with the ponderous masses of rock forming the 

 Cornish and other Tors. 



Any appearance of fantastic grouping or mysterious piling 

 of blocks, any remarkable shapes assumed by boulders, any well- 

 defined concavities on the upper surfaces of exposed rocks, were 

 declared to be Druidic, if not Titanic, in their origin. 



The eroding action of carbonic acid contained in rain falling 

 upon granite, and the abrading effect of the oscillation of rain- 

 water lodged in depressions of the stone and agitated by the 

 wind, were not taken into calculation ; but such action, brought to 

 bear upon surfaces and upon their slight inequalities, though at 

 first it may be imperceptible, produces very visible effect when 

 the contact has been continued through untold ages, This fact 

 being now recognized, antiquaries have ceased to suppose that 

 the formation of natural rock-basons hollowed out by exposure 

 to the weather during countless centuries, the poising of rocking 

 or logging stones, known as logan-rocks, the dividing and 

 settling of various other blocks in strange positions, parted from 

 their original adjuncts by disintegrating agency, were produced 

 "by art and man's device," — the revelations of Geology and 

 Chemistry having corrected so erroneous a view. 



There are of course certain rocks in Cornwall which have 

 been tooled, not only where miners and quarry-men, of old, have 

 been at work, but also where ancient strong-holds have been 

 constructed. 



Scarped rocks and dykes are met with, also ramparts com- 

 posed of rocky fragments piled up for defence. 



Nor can it be denied that human labor may have been 

 employed to render more shapely some rock-idol, if indeed such 



*See Borlase's " Antiquities," 1st edition, 1754, Book III. 



