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direct line East to West, along or very near the edges of the 
limestone beds ; in fact, just where the limestone is disturbed 
or replaced by strata of grit and shale. They extend at irre- 
gular intervals for a distance of several miles. In form they 
are mostly circular, and it is this marked regularity of shape, 
along with other circumstances, that impresses one with the 
conviction that some special cause must have produced them, 
and not any chance or purely local disturbance. As to 
number, there are upwards of two hundred ; at least so I was 
informed by an intelligent man whom I engaged as guide, 
and who, living in those parts, knows them well. They are 
in the form of an inverted cone, and vary in size ; one of the 
largest, which I measured, was about fifteen yards (45 feet) 
across, at the top, and about the same depth. With this 
brief description (which, however, includes about all that can 
be said of them,) it becomes an interesting inquiry as to how 
they have been produced. The first and most natural sup- 
position is that they are artificial. Against this it may be 
said there is the absence of all reasonable motive for any such 
excavations. They are in a wild part of the country, in the 
middle of a large tract of moorland, which has been for 
centuries only a cover for the plover and moor fowl ; and 
various tokens, visible on the spot, but which can hardly be 
described, seem to forbid such a supposition. As one, how- 
ever, we may point to the large grit boulders which are found 
in many of the holes, occupying various positions such as they 
hardly could have done by other than natural means. There 
is abundant evidence that, at some remote period, the whole 
of this tract was subject to remarkable changes, of which 
only slight indications now remain. Thus we find profusely 
scattered, in the most picturesque confusion, huge boulders 
of waterworn gritstone, lying on the top of the limestone, 
which must by some whelming force have traversed miles of 
country until left to settle in their present position. The 
R 
