ON THE TRACK OF THE " OLD MEN." 
107 
higher than the point of entrance, a stream could easily have been 
led to the required direction and level. The eastern wall of 
the wheel-pit is built of very large stones, one being six feet long, 
four feet wide, and three feet deep, which must weigh some six 
or seven tons. 
Inside the house, on the western side, is a recess ten feet long 
and four feet wide. At the entrance to this recess, in the south 
wall, just inside the doorway, is a small aperture or niche. On 
the eastern side, against the wall dividing the house from the 
wheel-pit, is the remnant of a fireplace. 
]STo mould stones or circular cavities are visible. 
The walls are built of similar stones to the other ruin, but 
are in a better condition, and much more perfect. 
Numerous hut circles are clotted about the slopes in the vicinity. 
Two with avenues leading to them from the river are particularly 
fine, and in good preservation. 
The whole valley has been disturbed to a great extent, showing 
that at some period the streaming operations here were of a very 
active character. The name of a neighbouring moorland farm 
(Stanlake) or the " tin stream " is very suggestive of this. 
Gobbett mine, near Hexworthy, is a very interesting spot ; for 
here are examples of the modern deep shaft, the shallow workings 
and deep open cuttings of the earlier miners, and the stream-works 
of the "old men." This, like nearly all the Dartmoor mines, is 
now abandoned. 
These remains of stream-works have been described by Mr. 
Amery in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1870. 
Among them are the remains of a crazing-mill, consisting of the 
upper and the nether stone. The nether stone is three feet ten 
inches in diameter, and ten inches thick. The eye of the stone is 
circular, and has a diameter of six and a half inches. In the 
periphery is a groove, forming a lip, so that the ground material 
was readily discharged from the stone. 
The upper stone is three feet in diameter on the flat grinding 
surface. The eye of this stone is five inches in diameter. The 
back is convex, roughly chipped and finished. The nether stone 
within the diameter of the upper is slightly worn by friction ; 
but it is not concave, nor was the grinding surface of the upper 
stone the convex side, as described by Mr. Amery. The error of 
