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NOTES. 327to the Celtic districts. But tlie fact is, that these stones arerounded with the nicest skill, and poized with theexactest mechanism.They are always found near some Druidical edificeof superior magnificence, and the man whose head is so gothicizedas toreckon them the effect of chance, need not hesitateto pronounce St. Giles' Church, or Lord Nelson's Monument, alusus natiircelThat these rocking stones were really artificial,is clearly established by Pliny, who (lib. 34. cap. 7.) gives usthe following account of one.''Talis et Tarent i factus a Ly.sippo qiiadraginta cubiionr.n.Mirum in eo, qiiod manu^ ut fe~runt^ mobilis (ea ratio libramenti) nulUs convellaiur procellis.Id qutdem providisse et artifex dicitur, modico intervallo, widemaximejiatum opus eratfrangi, opposite columna.''^—i.e. '• Andsuch a one, forty cubits high, was made at Tarentum, by Lysippus.The wonder of this stone is, that it is said to be moveableby a touch of the hand, (owing to the particular manner inwhich it is poized), and cannot be moved by the greatest force.Indeed, the workman issaid to have guarded against this, byopposing ?i fulcrum (prop) at a small distance, where it was exposedto the blast, and most liable to be broken." Had Plinybeen giving a description of the rocking stones in Scotland, hecould not have done it more exactly. They were, indeed, sopoized, and had so little room to vibrate, that the slightest touchgave them all the motion of which they were capable.Well knowing that these stones bear the most unequivocalcharacteristics of art, Mr. Pinkarton, in the next breath, confuteshimself, and tells us they are sepulchral monuments.Theinstance he gives us is from AppoMonius Rhodius, who writesthat Hercules, having slain the two sons of Boreas, erected overthem two stones, one of which moves to the sonorous breath ofthe north wind. Apollonius wrote the Argonautica ; and it iswell known the Argonauts, intheir expedition, visited many ofthe Celtic districts, and might have carried along with them themodel of these stones. Nay, what is more to the purpose, it ismost likely they carried one of these stones along with them,for Pliny (lib. 36. cap. 15.) tells us that there is a rocking stoneT t2