304 holmes: pre-historic remains of rombalds moor. 
Seven of the cups are surrounded by incomplete rings, many of them 
connected by an irregular arrangement of grooves. The plan and 
execution are so rude as to suggest the idea of these being in an in- 
complete state. The sides of the grooves are not smooth, and would 
seem to have been produced by a process of vertical punching, rather 
than by the means of a tool held sideway." This is the largest con- 
tinuous sculpture upon the moor, and runs some 20 feet from the west, 
which was covered up, towards the east; bare, exposed, and walked 
upon, from deep and clean cuttings, to being weathered and worn 
until scarcely perceptible. This will account for the imperfection 
suggested by Mr. Allan, while the general bearing of the design sug- 
gested to both Messrs. Wardell and Forrest the idea of a ground-plan 
of forts, earth- works, and huts. That this idea is justified see figs, 
i., ii., and iii., in plate 4 of Wareing's Rude Monuments, 1870; and 
the ground-plans of old British villages on the Cheviot Hills and in 
Cornwall (figs, i., ii., iii., and iv., plate 12). It will be observed that 
what may be called the entrances open nearly all one way in the plans, 
and so they do in the Cow and Calf figurings, supposing the chart 
idea to be assumed. It was the uncovering of this rock that led to 
all further investigation, and when at first noticed there was evidence 
of a sort of rock wall or line towards the moor, as though for pro- 
tection. This stone may assuredly be^classed as chart-like. About mid- 
way betwixt the two stones now instanced there was up to 1871 a 
loose stone which had evidently been removed. It lay promiscuously 
among others, but it bore finer and deeper cut figures than any 
other upon the moor. Before noticed it had been halved by a mason, 
but a cast (in the Leeds Museum) shews the remaining cups and 
rings, cut as described. There were no grooves, and this stone might 
be fairly classed as one symbolic of the sun or nature-worship. In 
1873 we regret to say that this, with many others, was cut up, and 
improved away for wall-stones, as many other similar figured 
ones have been. Higher up to the south, in a line with the 
Bakestone Beck, there is a stone with a number of cups upon it 
much weathered, only one or two shewing signs of rings. This is 
the one surrounded by a wall, which runs east and west down to 
