|
|
|
Page 275:-
hurder. We were told there were two others by the side of the
turnpike-road, in a field called the Slights; one about a mile,
and the other a mile and a half east of the Chapel-in-the-Dale.
They seem evidently placed there by human hands: and what was
most extraordinary, they were all small, round, sandy, and gritty
stones, and all the stones on the surface of the ground near them
are limestone. No doubt they were tumuli of some deceased
chieftans in the neighbourhood, or who died on their travels.
Before we left Horton we visited some natural curiosities of the
cavern kind on the base of Pennegant.[1] Dowgill-scar, a little
above Horton, is a grotesque amphitheatre of limestone rocks,
composing a high precipice, which must appear awful and grand in
a flood, when a large torrent of water falls from the top full in
view: a small subterranean passage was able to take all the water
when we were there. A romantic gallery, on the north side of the
rocks, had a good effect in the scene.- About a mile or two above
Horton, upon the base of Pennegant, we visited Hulpit and
Huntpit-holes. The one, if we could have descended into it, would
have appeared like the inside of an enormous old Gothic castle,
the high ruinous walls of which were left standing after the roof
was fallen in: the other was like a deep funnel, and it was
dangerous to come near its edges. Horton-beck, or brook, runs
through the one, and Bransil-beck through the other of these
pits, but through which I cannot remember: they each run under
ground near a mile: Horton-beck appearing again at Dowgill-scar,
and Bransil-beck at a place called Bransil-head. But what is most
extraordinary, these subterranean brooks cross each other under
ground, without mixing waters, the bed of one being on a stratum
above the other: this was dis-
|
|
|
|
[1]
The word Pen is of Phoenician extraction, and signifies head or
eminence. It was first introduced into Cornwall, where the
Phoenicians had a colony, who wrought the tin mines. Hence we
have many names in Cornwall which begin with Pen. Most mountains
in Wales begin with Pen. In Scotland, the labial letter P is
changed to B and Pen into Ben; as Benlomond, Benevish, &c.
|
