On this spot we are also reminded of the wild legend connected with Lady Howard's oak, still current in this part of Devonshire, and embodied in Mrs. Bray's tale of Fitz of Fitzford; nor is it improbable that there are some still whose superstitious fancy figures to them the doomed spectre of the once proud heiress, in her coach of bones, preceded by her skeleton hound, driving through the streets of Tavistock, at midnight, to bring a blade of grass from Okehampton Park to the gateway of Fitzford. Nor shall we omit to notice Fitz's Well, a spring on the ridge of the hill, which, according to the statement of the anonymous author of a concise but interesting account of the history and antiquities of Okehampton, "it was a custom till within a late period for young persons to visit on the morning of Easter day.' From this commanding spot we shall gain varied and favourable views of the town in the valley, the church on the eminence above, the mansion and groves of Okelands, the course of the Ockments, and the picturesque ruins of the castle. We shall here also appretiate the extent of the park, which stretching from the banks of the West Ockment in front of the castle, reaches to the channel of the eastern river, and forms the extreme northern foreland of the great Dartmoor waste, which we have been perambulating. Passing over the brow of the hill to Blackdown, we reach the Forest boundary once more, beyond the verge of the park, at Rowtor, or Roughtor, to which eminence it comes in a direct line from West Miltor, the spot at which we left it in our last excursion. The line of perambulation then goes down the north-eastern declivity of Rowtor to Chapel Ford, at the confluence of the Blackaven water with the East Ockment, called by the Perambulators the ford which lieth in the east side of St. Michael's chapel of Holstock. Scarcely a vestige of this antient sanctuary now remains. "The storms of six centuries," says the author above cited, "have wrought their work in its destruction. Excepting the line of its foundations, now covered like the rest with green sward, and a path leading to the spot from Belstone, with its crossing place over the East Ockment, still called the Chapel Ford, there is little left to point where our forefathers worshipped." The course of the river through this secluded glen presents a * Account of the Barony and Town of Okehampton. succession of scenes of romantic grandeur and wild magnificence. The river comes foaming down from the moors over a solid granite bed, in some places sufficiently steep to form a succession of waterfalls, and makes its way through a deep mountain gorge to Belstone Cleave, where it sweeps round the bold acclivity which forms the eastern boundary of the park. The hanging woods clothing the steep bank on the Okehampton side, are strikingly contrasted with the bare and rock-strewn declivity, which confronts them. Nor will the tourist reach this, the last definite bound-mark of the Forest, without confessing that in his whole perambulation he has seen no spot where the peculiar features of our moorland scenery are more felicitously combined than in this, the lonely glen of St. Michael of Halstock. Crossing the river we shall mount the steep ascent towards Belstone Tor, and within a quarter of a mile, on its western slope, we shall observe the circle called in the neighbourhood Nine Stones, but which in reality consists of seventeen stones, erect, the highest of which is not more than two feet and a half from the ground. We shall climb the hill, and having noticed the fine series of tors, which rise from the rock-strewn ridge, between the watercourses of the Ockment and the Taw, shall mark the direction of the line of perambulation, from the Chapel Ford in a line to Cosdon beacon, the Hoga* de Cosdown of the Perambulators. Having thus reached once more the point at which we commenced our wanderings round the Forest bounds, on the banks of the Taw, we shall return towards Okehampton, and pass in our way the moorland village of Belstone with its simple church and low sturdy tower, built as if to resist the fiercest onslaught of the mountain. tempest. We shall regain the vale of the East Ockment, in front of Belstone Cleave and the sombre gorge through which that stream pours down into the valley on the north side of the park; and again crossing the stream, shall skirt the south bank in our return to Okehampton, and there terminate our last excursion. * I am now satisfied that we should look in vain for a place named Hoga, and that it is to be sought for in the hill or height of Cosdon itself; the word corresponding with Heag, (Ang. Sax.) Hoog, (Dutch) Hoch, (German) &c. all implying altitude. APPENDIX, No. I. GEOLOGICAL VIEW OF DARTMOOR, By EDWARD Moore, m.d., f.l.s., late Secretary to the Plymouth Institution. THIS mountain elevation is one of the many masses of granite rock, which have risen up through the various shales, slates, and sandstones, which constitute the geological surface of Devon and Cornwall. These latter had been, for a long period, considered as a peculiar formation, to which the undefined term of Grauwacké, or Transition Rocks, had been applied. Recent investigations, however, have led to the announcement, by Professor Sedgwick and Sir R. Murchison, that the upper series, or culm measures, occupying principally the centre and north of Devon, belong to the carboniferous system; and that the lower series, extending throughout nearly the whole of South Devon and Cornwall, is equivalent to the old red sandstone of geological nomenclature. This latter view, first conjectured by many with hesitation, among the earliest of whom was Mr. John Prideaux, of Plymouth; † and respecting whom, Mr. Lonsdale‡ says, "full credit must be given to him, for placing part of the limestones in the old red sandstones"-was, at length, (after the investigation of its fossils by Mr. Lonsdale,) boldly asserted by Messrs. Sedgwick and Murchison, and is now admitted by nearly all geologists. To the entire system of rocks they have given the name of the "Devonian System,' which occupies a position intermediate between the carboniferous and Silurian systems. This class of rocks, stretching from Dartmoor to the South Coast, consists, in succession, of 1st, an indurated metamorphic group near the granite; 2nd, a great complex slate group with bands of limestone; 3rd, a coarse red arenaceous group; 4th, a great schistose deposit, dipping south, but at length reversed as it approaches, 5th, a mass of mica and chlorite slate, extending from the Start to Bolt-tail. Rocks of a similar character, consisting of five groups, also form the lower series on the North Coast of Devon * Phil. Mag., vol. xiv., p. 241, and Geological Trans. vol. v. + Trans. of Plymouth Institution, p. 48. Geological Trans., vol. v., p. 725. |