All this rubbish is based on supposition. There is not a particle of evidence to support it. Toland was the first to start the theory that logan stones were used for ordeal purposes or as oracles. He says: "The Druids made the people believe that they alone could move these stones, and by a miracle only, by which pretended power they condemned or acquitted the accused, and often brought criminals to confess what could in no other way be extorted from them." Here is a positive statement. Toland died in 1722. Whence did Toland derive this? From his imagination only. Then Rowe quotes him as his authority for attributing to the logan stones this function of delivering oracular judgments. Appeal was wont to be made to a line in Ossian as a support for the theory, but since Ossian has been proved to be a fraud antiquaries are chary of referring to him.
LOGAN ROCK. THE RUGGLESTONE, WIDDECOMBE.
There are some really fine logan rocks on Dartmoor. Perhaps the largest is one above the West Okement, which I remember seeing many years ago, when a boy, rolling in a strong wind like a boat at sea. That on Rippon Tor measures 16½ feet in length, and is about 4½ feet in thickness and nearly the same in breadth. It still logs, but not so well as formerly, owing to mischievous interference with it. There is a large one in the Teign, above Fingle Bridge, that can also be made to roll with the application of a little strength.
The Rugglestone, near Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, measures 22 feet by 14 feet in one part, and 19 feet by 17 feet in another, and is 5 feet 6 inches in mean thickness. Its computed weight is 110 tons, whereas the celebrated logan in Cornwall weighs 90 tons. This stone is poised upon two points.
Roos Tor, which the Ordnance surveyors playfully render Rolls Tor, possessed two logan stones, but quarrymen have destroyed one, together with the fine mass of rock on which it stood. Near it lay a huge menhir, never removed till these depredators broke it up. I give an illustration of the head of the tor with its two logans, taken in 1852; one alone remains. On Black Tor, near the road from Princetown to Plymouth, is a small logan, with a rock basin on the top, and with a projection like a handle. It can be made to oscillate without difficulty. A small logan is near the stone rows on Challacombe in the miners' workings. Its existence is purely accidental. Another is near a collection of hut circles on the slope of Combeshead Tor.
The rock basins are numerous; they are hollow pans formed on the surface of granite slabs by the action of wind and water, assisted by particles of grit set in rotation by the wind. "That this rude and primitive species of basin formed part of the apparatus of Druidism there can be little doubt," says Mr. Rowe, "but the specific purpose for which they were designed is not clear." Fosbroke unhesitatingly pronounces rock basins to be "cavities cut in the surface of a rock, supposed for reservoirs, to preserve the rain or dew in its original purity, for the religious uses of the Druids."
ROOS TOR, WITH ITS LOGANS, PREVIOUS TO DESTRUCTION.
All this assertion must be put aside. The bowls are excavated by natural agencies, and there is not a scrap of evidence to show that they were put to superstitious or any other use. The largest is on Caistor Rock, and this has been railed round, as sheep floundered in and got drowned, or could not get out again. Mis Tor has a fine basin, called "The Devil's Frying-pan."