ROWE (S.), _Perambulation of Dartmoor_ (new ed.). Exeter, 1896. A caution must be given that the original work was written in 1848, when archæology was a matter of theorising, and when Druids and Phœnicians cut great figures. In reading Rowe's book the reader must pass over all this.
CROSSING (W.), _Amid Devonia's Alps_. London and Plymouth, 1888. A pleasantly written little book, and free from the arrant nonsense of pseudo-antiquarians of fifty years ago, cooked up afresh.
PAGE (J. L. W.), _An Exploration of Dartmoor_. London, 1889. All the archæologic lore in this book must be rejected. Otherwise it is good.
CRESSWELL (B. F.), _Dartmoor and its Surroundings_. London, 1898. A handy 6d. guide, very useful, and commendably free from false theorising on antiquarian topics.
SPENCER (E.), _Dartmoor_. Plymouth, 1894. A fresh and pleasant book, trustworthy as to the geology, but wildly erroneous as to the antiquities.
Reports of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee of the Devonshire Association, 1894-9.
Reports and publications of the Dartmoor Preservation Society.
CROSSING (W.), _The Ancient Crosses of Dartmoor_. Exeter, 1887.
CROSSING (W.), _The Old Stone Crosses of the Dartmoor Border_. Exeter, 1892.
For the Churches on the borders of Dartmoor:--
Chapter xix. of ROWE'S _Perambulation_, new edition.
USSHER (W. A. G.), "The Granite of Dartmoor," in _Transactions of the Devonshire Association_, 1888.
Forest rights exercised by the Duchy--Rights of the parishes of Devon to Dartmoor--Encroachments--Venville--Newtakes--Importance of the moor as common land--The four quarters--Drifts--A moorman's house--Vipers in the walls--Crockern Tor and Mr. Fowler--The "Wish Hounds"--The pixies--How an Ordnance surveyor was pixy-led--The moor in fog--Story of a pixy birth--Joe Leaman and the pixies--Notice on church gate--The boys and the plaster figures--The witch of Endor--Those born on the moor do not like to leave it--Freshets on Dartmoor rivers--The Dart--Ancient tenements--The Prisons--Story of an attempted escape--A successful escape--Cost to the country of the criminal class--Some effort should be made to prevent crime--Believer Day--Trout-fishing--Dartmoor in winter--The song of the moor.
Dartmoor consists of moorland running up to heights of over 2000 feet, a great deal of the area being enclosed, forming rough grazing farms, but much of it remains to-day what it was thousands of years ago, boulder-strewn ravines, through which rush impetuous streams, rocky heights crowned with huge blocks of granite, so weather-worn and piled up as to suggest to the stranger that some Titans had so placed them to serve as castles or to add a romantic touch to already wild scenery. Great sweeps of heather and furze-clad downs run up to these elevations, and on many of these the rude stone monuments lie scattered about in all directions.