192 



CAERNARVONSHIRE. 



Caernar- 

 vomhirr. 



hills are well cultivated, and the eastern side of the valley, 

 which is in Di nbighshire, consists of low and broken 

 hills, variegated with corn-fields, grass, and pasturage. 



The principal rivers of this county are the Con- 

 way and the Seiont. The Conway has its source in 

 a lake, at the point where the counties of Caernarvon, 

 Denbigh, and Merioneth meet. It runs in a northern 

 direction, skirting the east side of the connty, and 

 after a course of 24 miles it empties itself into the 

 Irish sea. It is navigable for about 12 miles from its 

 mouth. The Seiont springs from a lake called Llyn- 

 pris, among the hills about Snowdon, and running 

 westward, discharges itself into the Menai Straits at 

 Caernarvon. 



The air of this county is cold and piercing. The 

 extremities of the county near the sea are, however, 

 fertile and populous, and yield fine barley in abun- 

 dance. Between the hills there are many fruitful 

 and pleasant vallies, which form a fine contrast with 

 the dreary wastes which surround them. All the moun- 

 tains of Caernarvonshire, and some of the low grounds 

 on the western side, are commons. Sheep are pas- 

 tured on the mountains, and black cattle on the low- 

 er grounds ; and it is an annual custom among the 

 farmers to fix the number of sheep which each shall 

 send to the mountains. This privilege is sometimes 

 sold by individuals for 4d. a head from May till Mi- 

 chaelmas. " The sheep," says Mr Pennant, " which 

 during summer keep very high in the mountains, are 

 followed by their owners with their families, who re- 

 side in that season in hqfodtai, or summer dairy- 

 houses, as the farmers in the Swiss Alps do in their 

 sennes. These houses consist of a long low room, 

 with a hole at one end to let out the smoke from the 

 fire, which is made beneath. Their furniture is very 

 simple ; stones are the substitutes of stools, and the 

 beds are of hay, ranged along the sides. They ma- 

 nufacture their own clothes, and dye them with the 

 lichen omphaloides, andparietinut, collected from the 

 rocks. During summer, the men pass their time ei- 

 ther in harvest work, or in tending their herds ; the 

 women in milking, or in making butter and cheese." 

 The preceding account, which must have been true 

 in the time of Pennant, is contradicted by Mr Kay 

 in his General View of the Agriculture of North 

 Wales. He denies that the families live in the moun- 

 tains. The wethers, according to him, are only 

 sent up, and the ewes with their lambs are kept 

 in the low grounds. When the lambs are wean- 

 ed, the ewes are milked about two months, and the 

 milk being mixed with that of the cows, is employ- 

 ed in making cheese. From the hundred of Llyn, 

 which is in general flat, and interspersed with insu- 

 lated rocky hills, oats, barley, butter, and cheese, are 

 exported, and about three thousand black cattle were 

 annually sold. 



The immense extent of land between the counties 

 of Caernarvon and Merioneth, called the Traeth 

 Mawr, consisting of about 3500 acres, and forming 

 the bottom of the Bay of Cardigan, was granted 

 by the crown in 1807 to William Madocks, Esq. 



for the purpose of recovering it from the sea. This Caernar- 

 enterprisiiig gentleman had, in August 1809, com von-hire. 

 pleted 1000 yards of an embankment, composed of ^"-y**. 

 rock and soil, and about 12 yards broad at the top. It 

 is prevented from sinking in the sand by a thick kind 

 of matting made with rushes, and secured by stakes. 

 The water, which flows from the mountains about 

 Snowdon, is to be discharged by means of live flood- 

 gates, each fifteen feet high.-j- 



The rocks, which compose the higher part of the 

 chain that extends from Aberconway to the sea at 

 Aberdaron, are chiefly porphyry, granite, and granitel 

 of Kirvvan. The lower rocks are principally horn- 

 blende, schiller spar, loadstone, mica slate, clay slate, 

 mixtures of quartz, feldspar, atid mica, with clay slate 

 in all its varieties. On the west side of this range are 

 a number of basaltic columns, on a bed of hornstone 

 or chert, and in the fissures are found cubic pyrites, 

 and various other minerals. At Nant-Francon are 

 the slate quarries of Lord Penrhyn, who has con- 

 structed admirable railways, and effected a number of 

 valuable improvements. By means of an inclined 

 plane, and a proper apparatus on the top of an emi- 

 nence, about 20 sledges are drawn up and let down 

 at once, and when they reach the level, two horses 

 are sufficiently able to draw them to the adjoining' 

 quay on the Menai, called Port Penrhyn. This rail- 

 way cost L. 170,000, and the real profits of the slate 

 quarries, to which it is attached, amounts to about 

 L. 15,000 per annum. Above L. 35,000 worth of 

 slates are annually exported from the county. A 

 little to the eastward of Pwllhely, there is a vein of 

 yellow ochre ; near Penrhyn also there is found a 

 blackish heavy hard stone, which is used instead of 

 brass for supporting the pivots and gudgeons of light 

 machinery ; and towards Bardseye sound is found a 

 beautiful red stone, which will bear a fine polish. 

 Near Cwm Idwal, there is a quarry celebrated for 

 excellent hones,, of which great quantities are annually 

 sent to London. Some lead mines have been disco- 

 vered near Gwedir; and in the promontory of Pen- 

 rhyn du, one of the points of the Tudwals bay, there 

 have been several adventures for lead ore. Many at- 

 tempts have been made to drain the mines by an en- 

 gine, but the expence has always been too great- 

 Copper mines have been wrought in various parts of 

 the Snowdon mountains, but particularly in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Llanberis. About 200 yards above the 

 Lake Ffynnonlas are the copper mines of Sir Robert 

 Williams, Bart., the produce of which is carried in 

 bags for nearly a mile on the backs of men, and over 

 one of the highest ridges of Snowdon, till it is brought 

 to a road accessible to sledg-.s. At Drws y Coed 

 there were some years ago considerable adventures 

 for capper of the pyritous kind, and thin laminae of 

 the native metal were sometimes found in the rocks. 



The principal mountains in this- county are Snow- 

 don \ and Penmaen-Maur. The height of Snowdcn, 

 above the level of the sea, at Caernarvon bay, is gene- 

 rally estimated at 3567 or 3600 feet. About 6 

 miles to the W. S. W. from Aberconway, the tremen- 



j- A full account of this plan will be found in a Note by the Editor of Pennant's Tours in Wales, voL ii. p.. 364 Lon* 

 1810. 

 $ See the article SMOWBON, for a full account of this celebrated mountain, 



