The New International Encyclopædia/Dartmoor

DART'MOOR (named from the river Dart, which rises in the region). A granitic tableland in the southwest of Devonshire, England, remarkable for its wild, rugged scenery and cyclopean relics of aboriginal inhabitants (Map: ../England/, C 6). Dartmoor proper (or the ancient forest of that name) and the outlying common lands are about 20 miles square. This moorland region, encircled by a natural rampart, and moated by deep valleys, has a considerable elevation above the surrounding country, and culminates in Yes Tor, 2040 feet above the sea-level. Copper is found, and at Wheal, Duchy, and Birch Tor are productive tin-mines. The largest kaolin-works in England are at Lee Moor, which is also the seat of a meteorological observatory. The soil is composed chiefly of peat, which in the bottoms has accumulated in some places to the depth of 25 feet, and it rests on a subsoil of fine sand. Many of the well-watered dells and ravines are fertile, while the whole moor affords pasturage for cattle, sheep, and horses. The antiquities include the Gray Wethers, a fine specimen below

Sittaford Tor, of what is now styled a Druidical temple, the vestiges of a large aboriginal village at Grimspound, the cromlech at Drewsteignton, logans, stone avenues, dolmens, barrows, cairns, rock-pillars, and ancient trackways.

During the long war with Napoleon, a prison, now used for convicts, was erected in western Dartmoor for French captives. Prince Town sprang up close by, and soon became a thriving place. During the war with the United States (1812-15), many captured Americans were confined at Dartmoor. See.

The castle, manor, and forest of Dartmoor were granted by Henry III. to his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and since 1337 Dartmoor has been, in part, permanently annexed to the Duchy of Cornwall. Dartmoor figures conspicuously in poetry and romance. Consult Rowe, A Perambulation of the Ancient and Royal Forest of Dartmoor, etc. (Plymouth and London, 3d ed., 1896).