Rocking-Stone

a rock resting on a rounded base so nicely that it may be rocked to and fro. Such stones are most apt to be found in a granite country. They are formed usually by the weathering away of the lower edges of a block in such a manner that the base becomes small and rounded. Sometimes they are stranded boulders brought down by a glacier and left on a table of rock when the ice receded. Rocking stones occur in all countries. The best known are in Great Britain and Ireland. One near Land's End, Cornwall, is computed to weigh seventy tons; yet it is easily set rocking by a single person. One on the island of Magee, Ireland, was believed by the peasantry to begin rocking gently on the approach of a person guilty of grievous crime. One in Argentina weighs, it is said, over 700 tons; yet it is poised so lightly that it rocks in a heavy wind. Yankee boys crack nuts under the edges of rocking stones.