Wesley Corpus

Adjoining to this lies an oval piece of ground, thirty or forty yards in diameter, which has been removed, whole as it is, from beneath the cliff, without the least fissure, with all its load of rocks, some of which were as large as the hull of a small ship. At a little distance is a second piece of ground, forty or fifty yards across, which has also been transplanted entire, with rocks of various sizes upon it, and a tree growing out of one of them. By the removal of one or both of these, I suppose the hollow near the cliff was made. All round them lay stones and rocks, great and small, some on the surface of the earth, some half sunk into it, some almost covered, in variety of positions. Between these the ground was cleft asunder in a thousand places. Some of the apertures were nearly closed again, some gaping as at first. Between thirty and forty acres of land, as is commonly supposed, (though some reckon above sixty,) are in this condition. On the skirts of these, I observed, in abundance of places, the green turf (for it was pasture-land) as it were pared off, two or three inches thick, and wrapped round like sheets of lead. A little farther it was not cleft or broken at all, but raised in ridges, five or six foot long, exactly resembling the graves in a churchyard. Of these there is a vast number. That part of the cliff from which the rest is torn, lies so high and is now of so bright a colour, that it is plainly visible to all the country round, even at the distance of several miles. We saw it distinctly, not only from the street in Thirsk, but for five or six miles after, as we rode toward York. So we did likewise in the great North Road, between Sandhutton and Northallerton. But how may we account for this phenomenon? Was it effected by a merely natural cause? If so, that cause must either have been fire, water, or air. It could not be fire; for then some mark of it must have appeared, either at the time, or after it.