XXVIII. Description of a Crom-Leach,in the County of Kilkenny. By Mr. Joseph Thomas Finegan. Communicated by The Marquess Townshend, and Earl of Leicester, President

Extract

The annexed drawing exhibits a representation of one of the most curious monuments of many similar structures, which are scattered over that part of the County Kilkenny, described by the name of the Walch Mountains, towering over the river Suir, situated between Carrick and Waterford. It is formed of a huge, unhewn block of rock, whose enormous weight is supported, in the highest part, by three large flat stones, placed perpendicularly, two of which, (the outermost) are parallel to each other, and the inner one at right angles to them: the other end of the shelving stone rests on a large horizontal flat stone, which is itself supported beyond its center, by an upright one; so that if the pressure of the higher stone was taken away, the horizontal flat one must fall to the ground. A proof of the resources, if not of the mathematical skill, of our rude ancestors, for with all the assistance of the improved machinery of the moderns, it is not probable that such ponderous masses could be raised now, and placed in similar positions, with such geometrical accuracy. The top of the shelving stone is 15 feet in elevation above the surface of the ground, by which the proportions of the profile may be known, with tolerable accuracy, and if we make due allowance for the consequent accumulation of earth around it, and the natural tendency of the materials which compose it, to assist by compression the swelling power of the earth, in the lapse of ages since its erection, we must presume, that its altitude was originally more elevated than it is at this day.