THE VALE OF CLWYD. 35 
ALLUVIUM. 
Where checked in its outflow the river Clwyd kept winding 
about and widening its valley till it opened out into the alluvial 
plain known as Morfa Rhuddlan. As soonas a good delta was 
formed the sand began to blow along the seaward margin of the 
alluvial deposits between tides, and dunes were formed, which 
effectually shut out all inroads of the sea. Within this later 
period it is probable that there were some slight oscillations of 
level, for all along the coast from near Rhyl to Colwyn Bay there 
are peaty patches, with remains of trees and roots, running into 
the blue scrobicularia clay. These run down to low-water mark, 
and, Iam informed, still further out to sea. Hazel and birch are 
} the common trees; and the antlers of red deer have frequently 
been found in the underlying clay. 
Another change, which I think extremely probable, is the 
destruction of a headland of drift running out opposite Llandrillo- 
: yn-Rhos. This would affect the denudation of the whole coast 
| line, and with small oscillations of level ; and the alternate 
formation and destruction of sand dunes would be quite enough 
to account for all the later changes at. the mouth of the Vale of 
Clwyd. 
In the wall of the churchyard at Abergele there is a plain 
sandstone monument bearing the following inscription :— 
Yma mae’n gorwedd, Here lies, 
Yn monwent Mihangel, In the churchyard of St. Michael, 
Gwr oedd a’i annedd A man who was born 
Lair milltir yn y Gogledd. Three miles to the North. 
The churchyard is now only one mile from the sea shore ; but 
the modern character of the letters, and the perishable nature of 
the stone do not permit of our assigning any great antiquity to 
the inscription. Yet it might be a late record of an old tradition, 
or a copy of an earlier slab. But the absence of any name or 
date, or mention of the circumstances make this improbable, as 
it could not be expected that. posterity would take on trust an 
anonymous communication respecting a nameless person. 
Though it is true that the counties are curiously mixed up along 
the coast, and it has been suggested in explanation that portions 
now detached may have had continuous connecting land along 
the sea shore when first the boundaries were fixed, still this 
would not belong to so late a date as the inscription, and sucha 
change of coast-line would have been a thing of so much 
importance that we should probably have heard more of it than 
an incidental allusion on a fanciful tombstone. 
On the whole, then, it seems to me most probable that if the 
inscription be genuine and true, it is one of the conceits so 
common in epitaphs, and refers to a man who was born on board 
ship two miles off the coast. 
The more recent estuarine deposits of Morfa Rhuddlan fill the 
valleys scooped out of the older estuarine and shore deposits I 
