The way round by the cliffs direct to the headland of Trereen Dinas, where the famous Logan Rock is situated, is scarcely to be ventured. The best way is up the delightful valley of Penberth, past the mill-house, and so round to the left by the "Logan Rock Inn," in the hamlet of Trereen.
CHAPTER XV
THE LOGAN ROCK AND ITS STORY—PORTHCURNO AND THE TELEGRAPH STATION—ST. LEVAN—PORTH GWARRA—TOL-PEDN-PENWITH—CHAIR LADDER—LAND'S END.
It is half a mile from the stony hamlet of Trereen to the Logan Rock, which stands up against the skyline towards the seaward extremity of that magnificently rugged headland, Trereen Dinas. The narrow neck of this peninsula is deeply scored across with a ditch and heaped with a parallel wall of stones and earth, the defensive works of a long-forgotten people, but it is not so much to see these vestiges of insecure prehistoric times, nor even to view the fine scenery, that a continual stream of visitors comes hither all the summer. It is the Logan Rock that attracts them. This rock, one of the many "logans" in Cornwall which are so balanced or pivoted by the natural weathering of ages that they "log," or oscillate slightly, to a vigorous push, is the most famous of its kind, both for its own self and for the circumstances of its later history. It is an irregular cube of granite weighing sixty tons, some say ninety, poised upon a great mass of fantastic rocks, curiously jointed, and overlooking the sea from a height of about two hundred feet. Borlase, writing in his "Antiquities of Cornwall," 1754, declared it to be "morally impossible that any lever, or indeed force, however employed in a mechanical way, can remove it from its present situation." The same view was held by the country people, and so worked upon Lieutenant Goldsmith of H.M.S. cutter Nimble, cruising off-shore on the look-out for smugglers, that he determined to overthrow the stone and thus prove himself a fellow clever beyond all expectation. So, on April 8th, 1824 (it would have been more appropriately done on the 1st), he landed with a boat's crew of nine men, and with handspikes and much personal exertion did succeed in performing that which Borlase and the united voice of the countryside had declared to be impossible. He overthrew the Logan Rock, and had it not become lodged in a cleft, it must have descended into the sea and been lost for ever. He did, incidentally, a great deal more. The wanton act of folly rightly aroused Cornwall to furious indignation, and he went in great personal danger for awhile. If such an ass as he had been lynched it would have been a salutary warning to others. The Admiralty could not ignore the anger that had been aroused, and speedily intimated to Lieutenant Goldsmith that he must either replace the rock or lose his commission. The tackle for the purpose was lent to him from the dockyard at Devonport, and after much preparation and the construction of elaborate staging, the rock was returned to its place on November 2nd, in the presence of a vast crowd assembled to witness it. The work was costly beyond the means of a lieutenant, and was carried through by subscription. Goldsmith's career was ruined by this act of folly, and he died in 1841, without promotion. The "logging" of the rock was quite destroyed and, although it appears still to be delicately poised, it requires great exertion to induce even the suspicion of a tremor.
TREREEN DINAS.
