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Mr. Flavell Edmunds, on the ancient haunts of Llewelyn, the last native Prince 
of Wales, and on the archeology of the district, and he hoped to hear still more 5 
but they might be assured that it was impossible for the lover of history and 
historical lore to explore Wales, and ramble hammer in hand among its moun- 
tains and vales without thinking of the gallant race of mountaineers which for 
years bid defiance to the Romans, again and again defeated the Saxons, and drove 
many a Norman king half wild with their gallant stand for liberty. ‘‘ Hospitable 
and generous, full of poetry and wild native music,” who did not revolt at the 
atrocious eruelties practised upon them by the Norman kings and their brigand 
chiefs? Referring to the geology of the picturesque country around Builth, he 
reminded his hearers that the scenery they so much admired is due to physical 
causes, and those forces of nature which through long ages have been at work 
shaping the mounteins and hollowing out the vales. Earthquake and volcanic 
action; denudation by the action of former seas ; denudation by atmospheric 
and subriaeal forces in later times, have all been active in the Builth country. As 
regards earthquake and volcanic action there must have been somewhere in the 
Carneddau an active volcano with its crater above the waves of the surrounding 
Llandeilo seas, fur great masses of volcanic ash and pumice were interstratified 
with the Llandeilo strata. The Carneddau trap masses were merely the roots of 
the former volcano, and they had good proof that the crater was subaerial, and 
poured out masses of lava and showers of ashes, for there was evidence that the 
ashes and lighter volcanic materials fell after eruption into the surrounding waters 
where they afterwards sank and became stratified sea beds, or interstratified ash 
beds, in which were sometimes found the Trilobites, Lingulas, and Orthoceratites, 
which once lived in the Llandeilo seas. 
When the Carneddau volcano was active in the Builth district there were 
volcanos in activity and force where now are the Aran mountains in North Wales; 
and probably Cader Irdis, which had a volcano in activity in earlier times (Lower 
Llandeilo period) still continued to evolve its fires when Carneddau was active 
also. 
The fossil remains of the animals found in the Upper Llandeilo rocks of the 
country around Builth are the Silurian forms of crustacea known as Trilobites, 
which are beautifully preserved, as are also some of those chambered shells, such 
as the Orthoceras, which are of the highest forms of molluscous life. Lingulas, 
and other shell fish too, were abundant in some localities, and on the lower shell 
fish it is probable that the high class Orthoceratites preyed. Both Trilobite and 
Orthoceras read a lesson to those, who chose to learn, of deep importance in the 
history of geologic creation, as the evidence now stands concerning it. The Upper 
Llandeilo rocks are often full of the remains of Trilobites probably destroyed 
en masse by an outpouring of lava from Clarneddau into the sea. And no one can 
study these stony records without observing that the laws of birth, and life and 
death, were as firmly established in those early ages as they are at present. The 
young Trilobite, side by side with its parent, alike yielding to the same fate, tells 
us plainly that these mysterious laws have been at work for unnumbered ages, 
