J" 



39^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 



the Land's End, is a mafs of granite, weighin.^ 

 more than lixty tons, refting on a rock of gra- 

 nite, of confiderable height, and clofe on thfe 



r 



fea-lliore. The two (tones touch but in a fmall 

 fpot, their furfaces being confiderably convex 

 towards one another. The uppermoft is fo near- 

 ly in an equilibrium, that it can be made to vi- 

 brate by the ftrength of a man, though t 

 fet it entirely would require a vaft foi'ce. 

 arifes from the centre of gravity of th 

 being fomewhat lower 



over- 



Th 

 ft 



IS 



one 



th 



th 



of 



f that part of 



hich it h 



dency to roll ; the confequence of which is^ th 



any 



prelTed 



on 



th 



ft 



fo 



s 



f gravity 



S 



fe, (though not very 



liderably), by which means it returns whenever' 

 the force is removed, and vibrates backward and 

 forward, till it is reduced to reft. Were it re:- 

 quired to remove the ftone from its place, it 



migbl; 



cient information to jullify that affertion j but the great 

 iize of that at the Land's End, its elevated pofition, and the 

 approaches toward fomething of the fame kind which 

 are to be feen in other parts of that Ihore, prove 

 that it is no work of art. They who afcribe it to 

 the Druids, do not conlider the rapidity with which 

 the Cornilh granite w^afles, nor think how improbable 

 it is, that the conditions necelTary to a rocking-ftone, 

 whether produced by nature or art, fhould have remain- 

 ed the fame for lixteen or feventeen hundred years*^ 



