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 2 The Ancient Stone Crosses In the report of a Committee of the House of Commons, made in the early years of the nineteenth century, the size of the moor is given as one hundred and thirty thousand acres, or two hundred and three square miles, and this we may con- sider to be the extent of what is now generally- known as Dartmoor. The market towns and principal villages on its borders are Okehampton, Chagford, Moretonhampstead, Ashburton^ Holne, South Brent, Ivy bridge, Corn wood, Plympton, Shaugh, Meavy, Walkhampton, Tavistock, Lydford and Bridestowe. Its most southerly point is at the foot of the Western Beacon above Ivy bridge, and the distance from this spot to its northern verge, immediately above the market town of Okehampton, is, as the crow flies, about twenty-three miles. Its average breadth is about ten or twelve miles, though at its widest part, from Black Down on the west to Ilsington Common on the east, it is over seventeen. The elevation of Dartmoor is between one thousand three hundred and one thousand four hundred feet, while many of its hills attain an altitude of one thousand seven hundred or one thousand eight hnndred feet, and some over two thousand, the highest being on its borders. Many of the hills are crowned with a rugged pile of granite rocks, known as a tor, which frequently assume grand and fantastic proportions. Numerous rivers take their rise in the bogs which are found in many of its more elevated parts, among which are the Dart (which gives name to the district), Teign, Taw, Ockment, Tavy, Walkham, Plym, Yealm, Erme, and the Avon, each having a number of tributaries. Its principal river, the Dart, is sometimes erroneously stated to have been so called from the swift- ness of its current, which, however, is not more rapid than that of other streams on the moor. In all probability the the name is derived from the Celtic word dwr — ^water — ^a root found in the names of several rivers in countries peopled by Celtic tribes. In some of the more desolate parts of Devon's lonely region the eye rests upon nothing but a vast stretch of heath, with here and there a tor, peeping over the gloomy looking ridges, a desert waste, from which even the faintest signs of civilization are absent. In other parts are deep valleys down which rush