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into blocks of various dimensions. When the harder part of a mass, that is the 
quartz, happens to be in the centre, the surrounding surface crumbles away, leav- 
ing the incumbent block poised on a point or base sufficiently small to allow of 
its vibrating on a slight force being applied. When the quartz or harder material 
predominates at the sides, although the same amount of waste or crumbling of the 
softer parts may take place, and the decomposed portions be washed away by the 
rains, yet no rocking stone results therefrom, because the base on which it rests is 
too broad to allow of any lateral movement. 
It can easily be imagined that in a district such as the Land's End, and western 
Cornwall generally, where the upraised granite has been exposed to the influence 
of the weather for many centuries, both logan rocks and rock-basins are fre- 
quently to be met with. 
Rocking stones, like rock-basins, have been considered as the work of the 
Druids, but this opinion is evidently without foundation. The Druids may have 
used them to inspire their superstitious followers with an idea of their power and 
sanctity, in order to make the ignorant multitude believe them to be endowed 
with the attributes of a God. Whether the Druids used rocking stones for divin- 
ation, or whether they were idols to be worshipped, or were made the fraudulent 
means by which the ignorant vulgar could be imposed upon, or whether the 
Druids ever used them at all, are mere matters of conjecture, for no records exist 
which can illustrate the subject with any degree of certainty. 
Rocking stones occur in other parts of England as well as in Cornwall. Among 
the Brimham rocks in Yorkshire are several, the most remarkable of which rests 
upon a rude kind of pedestal. On a mountain between Knaresborough and Skip- 
ton, in the same county, another is recorded ; as also are others near Warton 
Crag, in Lancashire, the Bradley Rocks, on Stanton Moor : Derbyshire is another 
locality which claims to possess one of these remarkable objects ; at Drewsteign- 
ton, Devonshire, a remarkable one is said to be worthy of examination. 
Among the natural productions of Cornwall, the tolmen demand notice; they, 
like the rocking stones, and rock-basins, though perhaps at an early period objects 
of veneration, or impious fraud, have been produced by natural causes, not by art. 
One of the most remarkable tolmen known is that of Constantine. This huge 
detached rock is seen from the eastern part of Mount's Bay, perched as it were 
on a distant hill top, midway between Helston and Falmouth. The estimated 
weight of this mass of granite is 700 tons, and unless the rock and the base on 
which it stands be purchased, it bids fair to become part of our national buildings 
at Chatham or Plymouth, as the granite quarries had, when I made a drawing of 
it, reached within a few feet of the natural pedestal on which it stands. An appeal 
had been made to the three Royal Societies of Cornwall, namely, Falmouth, 
Penzance, and Truro, in behalf of this rude memorial of nature, but with what 
success I cannot say. 
Strictly speaking, the tolmen of Constantine is not a "holed stone," for the 
hole or open space is between its two points of support. The aperture thus 
