A Fine Corrie 227 



these little boulders lie in the peat, not actually at the 

 bottom of the beds ; and how they came there, and when, is 

 a problem upon which the geologist is left to ponder. In 

 the peat here and there, too, branches of considerable trees 

 occur, which we must suppose to have grown where they 

 lie ; yet no tree could exist there now, and we are confronted 

 with another problem scarcely less difficult of solution than 

 the first. On some of the summits the peat is weathered 

 and soft, without any of the homogeneity that goes to form 

 good fuel, and so loose that it barely affords root-hold to 

 the scantiest of vegetation. Of growing Sphagnum, of 

 which the peat has been largely formed, there is none, 

 except in the holes and basins at lower elevations. 



The corrie in whose basin lies Cwmffynon, is one of the 

 finest to be seen in Wales ; but its effect is better appreciated 

 at a greater distance, as, for example, from the hills on the 

 other side of Cwm Cynllwyd. Its precipices are composed 

 alternately of lava rocks and slate, forced up into almost 

 every conceivable angle, with heaps of debris, and mouldered 

 stone, piled up below, steeper than it seems possible for 

 loose material to cling together. Where the banks are 

 overgrown with grass, they are often so steep as to be 

 climbed only with difficulty on all fours ; but in many places 

 no vegetation has yet found a foothold, and soil and stone 

 lie barren and exposed, liable to slide away at every change 

 in the weather, and almost inaccessible to human foot. On 

 one such bare brae I came upon the nest of a Meadow Pipit, 

 away from any vestige of herbage, and sheltered under a 

 slab of rock, more like the nest of a Wheatear, or a Snow 

 Bunting, than a Titlark. On another slope, a Wheatear, or 

 Gynffonwen, had made her home beneath a piece of white 

 quartz, at arm's length into a hole that seemed as though it 

 might have been made by a Stoat, or perhaps a Vole, the 

 bird only betraying her presence by flying out when I 

 chanced to step upon the stone. 



Every here and there one meets with traces of ancient 

 huts, or trenches, which, apparently, can only have been 

 formed for military purposes ; and it is easy to imagine the 

 difficulty which Roman, or Saxon, invaders must have 



