Miscellanies. 



185 



15. Notice of a Rocking Stone. — It is situated upon a ledge, about 

 a mile south from Dartmouth College, and about one fourth of a mile 

 north of where the road leading from Hanover to Lebanon, crosses 

 Sand Hill. The ledge is an extensive range of coarse granite, of 

 which the rocking stone is probably a fragment, detached from the 

 most elevated part and moved to its present site ; a depression, very 

 well answering to the shape of one of the lateral faces of the rocking 

 stone, is distinctly to be traced upon the most elevated part of the 

 rocky ledge. The form of the stone is nearly that bf an irregular 

 four sided pyramid, with the base upward. The lateral faces are 

 almost smooth. 



In the annexed sketch, figures 1, 2, 3 and 4, represent the north, 

 south, east and west views of the stone respectively. The north 



side, (fig- 1,) is nine and a half; the south, (fig. 2,) thirteen; the 

 east, (fig. 3,) twelve and a half; the west, (fig. 4,) nine feet in 

 length. The height varies from five to eight or nine feet. The 

 rock is movable only in one direction, and turns upon a small stone 

 of a prisraoidal shape, two or three feet in length, and which oper- 

 ates as a kind of friction roller. 



One would be led to suppose, from a view of either of the figures 

 in the sketch, that the stone might easily be moved from its position ; 

 but the fact is otherwise. Although it can be moved with one finger, 

 and can easily be made to vibrate three or four inches with the hand; 

 yet its equipoise being destroyed, it would rest in any direction upon 

 the ledge beneath ; from which it is separated only by a space of a 



Vol. XXIV.— No. 1, 24 



