BY HU&a MILLEfi. 345 



ridge within the wood, a few hundred yards west from "Walwick 

 Hall, near Chollerford. These were pointed out to me by Mr. 

 Dickson of Walwick Grange, who thought that perhaps they 

 might be large examples of the mysterious incised cups of the 

 ancient Britons. But although in one or two cases well nigh as 

 symmetrical as a wash-hand basin, and very similar in size, they 

 are not artificial. The largest is one foot nine inches in diameter, 

 by six inches in depth. 



The most extraordinary pot-holes I know occur along with the 

 Devil's Punch Bowl on the Shafto Crags. This remarkable group 

 is borne upon an isolated cap of stone, raised on a short pedestal 

 on the verge of the rock, in the full sweep of the westerly winds. 

 Its outer edge is bordered by a deeply excavated fretwork of close 

 set pot-holes, mostly worked out into channels, and resembling a 

 crimped edging. The two largest pot-holes within, are each 

 about three feet and a half in their largest diameter and have 

 broken together, forming a considerable pool. A deep gutter 

 slopes to one side. Near this, as if intended to drain into it, 

 stands the central object of interest, — a spacious basin of perfect 

 circularity of internal contour. The eye may take a lesson here 

 between the artificial and the natural. The natural are all 

 lengthened in the direction of slope ; the artificial, although 

 lying on the same slope, has not taken the cue, has been betrayed 

 into no irregularities of form, and shelves too deep. I shall 

 have occasion to revert to this stone. 



Curious potholc-likc perforations occur in limestone, and, though 

 diy in all cases I have seen, these seem to deepen indefinitely 

 by solution. On the Fox Green, near Lonbrough, S.W. from 

 "Wark, is a group which, so far as I know, is unique in the 

 district. The largest of the holes, which arc cylindrical tubes, 

 is eight inches in diameter, and was excavated from the earth 

 that filled them to a depth of three feet, without reaching the 

 bottom: another hole close beside, whose orifice just admitted 

 the hand, was hollowed eighteen inches, when its rim checked 

 the arm from passing further in. The larger hole is smoothly 

 turned to about a foot downward, beyond which tlie sides arc 

 rougher. They contained rich mould, through which moisture 



