A PILGRIMAGE TO THE PEAKS OP OTTER. 
71 
KOCK BASINS AND A PILGRIMAGE TO THE 
PEAKS OF OTTER 
ABSTRACT OF LECTURE BY MR. T. A. CRAGOE, F.R.G.S. 
(Read October 27th, 1881.) 
The rock bowls, or basins, which the tors and cairns of Devon 
and Cornwall bore upon their ample breasts were local phenomena 
worthy of notice. In the last century the origin of these re- 
markable impressions upon the adamantine faces of our imperish- 
able granite greatly exercised the wits of the learned. A hundred 
years ago the rock basins of the West were believed to be incised 
bowls, or cups ; to-day they were generally believed to be weathered 
holes. The rock basins occurred most conspicuously in Cornwall 
on a cairn at Bosworlas, in St. Just, at Land's End, at Cam Brea, 
on the cap of dusky Roughtor, and on a rocky tor in the parish of 
Northill. The impressions varied in size and in shape, but were 
mostly circular. On a mighty rock one spacious bowl was often- 
times encircled by smaller ones, which communicated with each 
other by little channels or gutters. If it were argued that these 
runnels were at first the low lying places, and were due to the self- 
same erosion by water, they were met by the fact that a variety of 
these basins, with lips and without lips, were to be seen even now 
on the same granite on the same cairn. Certainly then the natural 
agencies which channelled some would channel all. Then again, 
though found on most of the cairns, they were not found on all, 
but assuredly the wind and rain beat on all alike. He therefore 
ventured to espouse the opinion that these rock impressions were a 
relic of a primitive people in these islands, made for a specific 
purpose, a purpose which at the time engrossed great religious, 
political, or economic interests; a people whose customs were 
swept away, and whose habits and whose beliefs were wrapped in 
oblivion, as were the impenetrable secrets lying buried beneath the 
ruined architraves of Stonehenge. 
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